Coupling Skull-Brain Vibroacoustics and Ultrasound Toward Enhanced Imaging, Diagnosis, and Therapy

人类颅骨的复杂结构使得使用超声波诊断和治疗脑部疾病或损伤非常困难。 该项目支持对颅脑系统中的振动声学和波传播的基础研究，以开发新的医学成像和治疗技术，用于诊断和治疗脑肿瘤，检测创伤和颅骨相关缺陷，绘制脑功能图和神经刺激。将在很宽的频率范围内探索耦合的头骨-大脑系统的动力学，以改善超声波的传输并控制大脑中产生的声音和振动场。 这种控制可以影响聚焦超声手术，并通过神经调节改变神经学。这项研究也可能对使用超声波通过血脑屏障递送药物产生影响，这可能对阿尔茨海默病的管理和治疗至关重要，并可能导致快速简单地诊断创伤引起的颅骨损伤，影响急诊医学并实现自给自足，表示“低”之义该研究项目的目的是研究头骨和大脑作为一个耦合的振动声学系统的动力学，增强成像、诊断和治疗的基础。该研究将调查：（1）如何能够采用导波（兰姆）来成像和检测大脑中的异常，（2）如何能够利用体波和兰姆波之间的模式转换来有效地将超声传输到不可接近的大脑区域而不引起颅骨中不可接受的温度升高，（3）低频颅骨振动与高频参数阵列激励耦合是否可以提供反馈/聚焦超声的引导，并可能消除对磁共振图像引导的需要，以及（4）非线性动态效应是否可以用于各种医疗目的，包括增强治疗超声和评估颅骨的结构完整性。 该团队将在广泛的频率范围内对耦合的头骨-大脑系统进行全面研究，以评估耦合头骨的振动/模态行为和振动声学，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查进行评估，被认为值得支持的搜索.

The complex structure of the human skull makes it very difficult to use ultrasound for the diagnosis and treatment of brain disease or injury. This project supports fundamental research on vibroacoustics and wave propagation in the skull-brain system to enable the development of new medical imaging and therapy techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of brain tumors, detection of traumas and skull-related defects, mapping of brain function, and neurostimulation. The dynamics of the coupled skull-brain system will be explored over a wide frequency range to improve the transmission of ultrasound and control the sound and vibration fields created in the brain. Such control can impact focused ultrasound surgery and transform neurology via neuromodulation. This research may also have implications for using ultrasound to deliver drugs through the blood-brain barrier, which may be critical for the management and treatment of Alzheimer's Disease, and might lead to fast and simple diagnosis of skull damage due to trauma, impacting emergency medicine and enabling self-contained, low-cost and portable medical equipment for that purpose.The objective of the research project is to investigate the dynamics of the skull and brain as a coupled vibroacoustic system to lay a foundation for enhanced imaging, diagnosis, and therapy. The research will investigate: (1) how guided (Lamb) waves can be employed to image and detect anomalies in the brain, (2) how mode conversion between bulk and Lamb waves can be exploited for efficient ultrasound transmission to inaccessible brain regions without causing unacceptable temperature rise in the skull, (3) whether low frequency skull vibrations coupled with high frequency parametric array excitation can provide feedback/guidance for focused ultrasound and potentially eliminate the need for magnetic resonance image guidance, and(4) whether nonlinear dynamic effects can be harnessed for various medical purposes, including enhanced therapeutic ultrasound and evaluation of the structural integrity of the skull. The team will conduct a comprehensive study of the coupled skull-brain system over a broad frequency range to evaluate the vibrational/modal behavior and vibroacoustics of the coupled skull-brain system and the application of both guided Lamb waves and bulk waves in the ultrasound regime.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.