During medical investigations of the head, the presence of skull bone constitutes a major challenge in generating accurate diagnostics. Photoacoustic imaging technology, with its functional imaging capabilities, has demonstrated the potential for brain imaging at low cost and with low maintenance requirements. While photoacoustic signal generation in deep tissue and through the skull has been demonstrated, an effective method of aberration correction for transcranial photoacoustic imaging has not yet been developed. In this study, we present a method based on enfolded deep learning algorithms that accurately compensates for acoustic aberrations caused by the head layers, allowing hemorrhage detection. Using a realistic simulated framework, a large quantity of aberrated images is acquired, reconstructed, and corrected.
This paper introduces an innovative approach to enhance the circular scanning-based photoacoustic tomography (CSPAT) system for photoacoustic imaging. The proposed method involves using a circular detection geometry with three carefully placed ultrasound transducers (USTs). By strategically selecting the angles of the USTs, the field of view (FOV) is expanded, and tangential resolution is improved without requiring additional imaging time. The new CS-PAT system demonstrates practicality and convenience, providing higher signal-to-noise ratio and better structural similarity compared to the conventional system. This approach overcomes the limitations of the limited size of USTs and widens the application potential of CS-PAT in a straightforward and efficient manner.
During medical investigations of the head, ultrasound measurements can offer information with simple, non-invasive, and real-time procedure. However, for human adult applications, the clinical treatment of transcranial acoustic imaging remains a challenge by the presence of the skull, results in acoustic aberrations caused by two main phenomena, i.e., attenuation and distortion. These aberrations may affect the signal understanding because of the induced artifacts and the inaccuracy of the imaging target structural information. Variations of the physical properties of the skull, its thickness and porosity, will strongly affect the mechanical properties of the medium and thus the acoustic response. We propose a method to understand the influence of these characteristics on the signal degradation. In order to mimic the human adult skull, a large quantity of epoxy resin-based phantoms is created to explore all the possible physical characteristic variation in the bone. Additional components, titanium dioxide and seeds, will be added to the samples to recreate the acoustic scattering effects of a skull bone. Signal features from pulse-echo mode ultrasound, such as signal attenuation or broadening, will be extracted and studied in the time and frequency domain. In this paper, we are looking for relationship between these physical parameters and the signal features, with the objective to determine bone characteristics without any direct access in later experiments; and going a step further into aberration correction during transcranial imaging procedure.
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