Monkey brain cortex imaging by photoacoustic tomography.

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is applied to image the brain cortex of a monkey through the intact scalp and skull ex vivo. The reconstructed PAT image shows the major blood vessels on the monkey brain cortex. For comparison, the brain cortex is imaged without the scalp, and then imaged again without the scalp and skull. Ultrasound attenuation through the skull is also measured at various incidence angles. This study demonstrates that PAT of the brain cortex is capable of surviving the ultrasound signal attenuation and distortion caused by a relatively thick skull.