Transcranial Assessment and Visualization of Acoustic Cavitation: Modeling and Experimental Validation
- 25 December 2014
- journal article
- Published by Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) in IEEE Transactions on Medical Imaging
- Vol. 34 (6), 1270-1281
- https://doi.org/10.1109/tmi.2014.2383835
Abstract
The interaction of ultrasonically-controlled microbubble oscillations with tissues and biological media has been shown to induce a wide range of bioeffects that may have significant impact on therapy and diagnosis of brain diseases and disorders. However, the inherently non-linear microbubble oscillations combined with the micrometer and microsecond scales involved in these interactions and the limited methods to assess and visualize them transcranially hinder both their optimal use and translation to the clinics. To overcome these challenges, we present a framework that combines numerical simulations with multimodality imaging to assess and visualize the microbubble oscillations transcranially. In the present work, microbubble oscillations were studied with an integrated US and MR imaging guided clinical FUS system. A high-resolution brain CT scan was also co-registered to the US and MR images and the derived acoustic properties were used as inputs to two- and three-dimensional Finite Difference Time Domain simulations that matched the experimental conditions and geometry. Synthetic point sources by either a Gaussian function or the output of a microbubble dynamics model were numerically excited and propagated through the skull towards a virtual US imaging array. Using passive acoustic mapping (PAM) that was refined to incorporate variable speed of sound, we were able to correct the aberrations introduced by the skull and substantially improve the PAM resolution. The good agreement between the simulations incorporating microbubble emissions and experimentally-determined PAMs suggest that this integrated approach can provide a clinically-relevant framework and more control over this nonlinear and dynamic process.Keywords
Funding Information
- National Institutes of Health (K99EB016971, Grant R25CA089017, Grant P01CA174645, Grant P41EB015898)
This publication has 51 references indexed in Scilit:
- Three-Dimensional Transcranial Ultrasound Imaging of Microbubble Clouds Using a Sparse Hemispherical ArrayIEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering, 2014
- Integrated ultrasound and magnetic resonance imaging for simultaneous temperature and cavitation monitoring during focused ultrasound therapiesMedical Physics, 2013
- A super‐resolution ultrasound method for brain vascular mappingMedical Physics, 2013
- Combined ultrasound and MR imaging to guide focused ultrasound therapies in the brainPhysics in Medicine & Biology, 2013
- Modeling nonlinear ultrasound propagation in heterogeneous media with power law absorption using a k-space pseudospectral methodThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2012
- Time-reversal transcranial ultrasound beam focusing using a k-space methodPhysics in Medicine & Biology, 2012
- Spatiotemporal Monitoring of High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Therapy with Passive Acoustic MappingRadiology, 2012
- Experimental demonstration of noninvasive transskull adaptive focusing based on prior computed tomography scansThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2003
- A non-invasive method for focusing ultrasound through the human skullPhysics in Medicine & Biology, 2002
- FDTD simulation of finite-amplitude pressure and temperature fields for biomedical ultrasoundThe Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 1999