Trans-skull Ultrasound for Imaging and Therapy

Abstract

Ultrasound has emerged as a novel modality for the treatment and imaging of brain diseases. When enhanced by circulating microbubble agents, which scatter sound and vibrate in response to the incident ultrasound, it can enable a range of new therapeutic interventions and open new possibilities for imaging. Despite these advancements, the skull remains a major challenge both for therapy and imaging. This work proposes methods for fast, frequency-selective passive reconstruction of the acoustic field through human skull with applications including improved targeting for exploitation of nonlinear acoustic effects in the brain, controlling the microbubble dynamics, and super-resolution imaging.