A Wearable, Steerable, Transcranial Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound System.

Objectives: Transcranial low-intensity focused ultrasound (LIFU) offers unique opportunities for precisely neuromodulating small and/or deep targets within the human brain, which may be useful for treating psychiatric and neurological disorders. This article presents a novel ultrasound system that delivers focused ultrasound through the forehead to anterior brain targets and evaluates its safety and usability in a volunteer study.

Methods: The ultrasound system and workflow are described, including neuronavigation, LIFU planning, and ultrasound delivery components.

Inertial Cavitation Behaviors Induced by Nonlinear Focused Ultrasound Pulses.

Inertial cavitation induced by pulsed high-intensity focused ultrasound (pHIFU) has previously been shown to successfully permeabilize tumor tissue and enhance chemotherapeutic drug uptake. In addition to HIFU frequency, peak rarefactional pressure ( p ), and pulse duration, the threshold for cavitation-induced bioeffects has recently been correlated with asymmetric distortion caused by nonlinear propagation, diffraction and formation of shocks in the focal waveform, and therefore with the transducer F -number. To connect previously observed bioeffects with bubble dynamics and their attendant physical mechanisms, the dependence of inertial cavitation behavior on shock formation was investigated in transparent agarose gel phantoms using high-speed photography and passive cavitation detection (PCD).

A Prototype Therapy System for Boiling Histotripsy in Abdominal Targets Based on a 256-Element Spiral Array.

Boiling histotripsy (BH) uses millisecond-long ultrasound (US) pulses with high-amplitude shocks to mechanically fractionate tissue with potential for real-time lesion monitoring by US imaging. For BH treatments of abdominal organs, a high-power multielement phased array system capable of electronic focus steering and aberration correction for body wall inhomogeneities is needed. In this work, a preclinical BH system was built comprising a custom 256-element 1.

Experimental observation of acoustic emissions generated by a pulsed proton beam from a hospital-based clinical cyclotron.

Purpose: To measure the acoustic signal generated by a pulsed proton spill from a hospital-based clinical cyclotron.

Methods: An electronic function generator modulated the IBA C230 isochronous cyclotron to create a pulsed proton beam. The acoustic emissions generated by the proton beam were measured in water using a hydrophone.

Enhanced therapeutic anti-inflammatory effect of betamethasone on topical administration with low-frequency, low-intensity (20 kHz, 100 mW/cm(2)) ultrasound exposure on carrageenan-induced arthritis in a mouse model.

The purpose of this work was to investigate whether low-frequency, low-intensity (20 kHz, <100 mW/cm(2), spatial-peak, temporal-peak intensity) ultrasound, delivered with a lightweight (<100 g), tether-free, fully wearable, battery-powered applicator, is capable of reducing inflammation in a mouse model of rheumatoid arthritis. The therapeutic, acute, anti-inflammatory effect was estimated from the relative swelling induced in mice hindlimb paws. In an independent, indirect approach, the inflammation was bio-imaged by measuring glycolytic activity with near-infrared labeled 2-deoxyglucose.

Ultrasound-induced modulation of cardiac rhythm in neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes.

Isolated neonatal rat ventricular cardiomyocytes were used to study the influence of ultrasound on the chronotropic response in a tissue culture model. The beat frequency of the cells, varying from 40 to 90 beats/min, was measured based upon the translocation of the nuclear membrane captured by a high-speed camera. Ultrasound pulses (frequency = 2.

Finite element static displacement optimization of 20-100 kHz flexural transducers for fully portable ultrasound applicator.

This paper focuses on the development of a finite-element model and subsequent stationary analysis performed to optimize individual flexural piezoelectric elements for operation in the frequency range of 20-100kHz. These elements form the basic building blocks of a viable, un-tethered, and portable ultrasound applicator that can produce intensities on the order of 100mW/cm(2) spatial-peak temporal-peak (I(SPTP)) with minimum (on the order of 15V) excitation voltage. The ultrasound applicator can be constructed with different numbers of individual transducer elements and different geometries such that its footprint or active area is adjustable.