Li Zherui, Yu Kai, Kosnoff Joshua, He Bin
Department of Biomedical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
Neuroscience Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA.
IEEE Access. 2025;13:113179-113193. doi: 10.1109/access.2025.3584245. Epub 2025 Jun 30.
Transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) has emerged as a promising non-invasive modality for precision neuromodulation. However, the heterogeneous acoustic properties of the skull often induce phase aberrations that shift the ultrasound focus and compromise energy delivery. In this study, we developed and validated a phase-reversal based aberration correction method to enhance the targeting specificity of tFUS using a 128-element random array ultrasound transducer. Individual head models were constructed from T1-weighted magnetic resonance (MR) images and corresponding pseudo-computed tomography (pCT) data to accurately represent subject-specific skull geometries and the targeted left V5 (V5L) region. Acoustic simulations were conducted with the k-Wave toolbox by first acquiring free-field pressure waveforms and then recording the aberrated waveforms in the presence of the skull. The phase differences between these conditions were used to compute corrective delays for each transducer element. Quantitative evaluation using metrics such as focal overlap with the target region, axial focal positioning, and the delivered ultrasound energy demonstrated significant improvements: the overlap volume increased by 98.70%, mean axial positioning errors were reduced by up to 14.36%, and energy delivery to the target improved by 17.58%. We further demonstrated that the proposed approach outperforms the conventional ray-tracing methods. The results show that phase-reversal based aberration correction markedly increases the spatial targeting accuracy of tFUS and enhances the efficiency of focused ultrasound energy deposition for the customized random array transducer, paving a way for effective and personalized non-invasive neuromodulation therapies.
经颅聚焦超声(tFUS)已成为一种有前景的用于精确神经调节的非侵入性方法。然而,颅骨的异质声学特性常常会引起相位畸变,从而使超声焦点发生偏移并影响能量传递。在本研究中,我们开发并验证了一种基于相位反转的像差校正方法,以使用128元随机阵列超声换能器提高tFUS的靶向特异性。根据T1加权磁共振(MR)图像和相应的伪计算机断层扫描(pCT)数据构建个体头部模型,以准确呈现特定受试者的颅骨几何形状和靶向的左侧V5(V5L)区域。使用k-Wave工具箱进行声学模拟,首先获取自由场压力波形,然后记录存在颅骨时的畸变波形。这些条件之间的相位差用于计算每个换能器元件的校正延迟。使用诸如与目标区域的焦点重叠、轴向焦点定位和传递的超声能量等指标进行的定量评估显示出显著改善:重叠体积增加了98.70%,平均轴向定位误差最多降低了14.36%,向目标传递的能量提高了17.58%。我们进一步证明,所提出的方法优于传统的射线追踪方法。结果表明,基于相位反转的像差校正显著提高了tFUS的空间靶向准确性,并提高了定制随机阵列换能器的聚焦超声能量沉积效率,为有效且个性化的非侵入性神经调节治疗铺平了道路。
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