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

人类头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。本计划支持振动声学及颅脑系统波传播的基础研究，以发展新的医学影像和治疗技术，以诊断和治疗脑肿瘤、检测创伤和颅骨相关缺陷、绘制脑功能图和神经刺激。将在宽频率范围内探索耦合颅脑系统的动力学，以改善超声波的传输并控制在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。这项研究还可能对利用超声波通过血脑屏障输送药物产生影响，这可能对阿尔茨海默病的管理和治疗至关重要，并可能导致对创伤造成的颅骨损伤进行快速和简单的诊断，影响急诊医学，并为此目的实现独立、低成本和便携式医疗设备。本研究的目的是研究颅骨和大脑作为一个耦合振动声系统的动力学，为增强成像、诊断和治疗奠定基础。本研究将调查：(1)如何利用引导（Lamb）波来成像和检测大脑中的异常；(2)如何利用体波和Lamb波之间的模式转换来有效地将超声波传输到无法进入的大脑区域，而不会导致颅骨内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是否可以为聚焦超声提供反馈/引导，并可能消除对磁共振图像引导的需要；(4)非线性动态效应是否可以用于各种医学目的，包括增强治疗超声和评估颅骨结构完整性。该团队将在广泛的频率范围内对耦合颅-脑系统进行全面的研究，以评估耦合颅-脑系统的振动/模态行为和振动声学，以及引导兰姆波和体波在超声系统中的应用。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.