Purpose: Ultrasound neuromodulation is a promising noninvasive technique for controlling neural activity. Previous small animal studies suffered from low targeting specificity because of the low ultrasound frequencies (<690 kHz) used. In this study, the authors demonstrated the capability of focused ultrasound (FUS) neuromodulation in the megahertz‐range to achieve superior targeting specificity in the murine brain as well as demonstrate modulation of both motor and sensory responses.Methods: FUS sonications were carried out at 1.9 MHz with 50% duty cycle, pulse repetition frequency of 1 kHz, and duration of 1 s. The robustness of the FUS neuromodulation was assessed first in sensorimotor cortex, where elicited motor activities were observed and recorded on videos and electromyography. Deeper brain regions were then targeted where pupillary dilation served as an indicative of successful modulation of subcortical brain structures.Results: Contralateral and ipsilateral movements of the hind limbs were repeatedly observed when the FUS was targeted at the sensorimotor cortex. Induced trunk and tail movements were also observed at different coordinates inside the sensorimotor cortex. At deeper targeted‐structures, FUS induced eyeball movements (superior colliculus) and pupillary dilation (pretectal nucleus, locus coeruleus, and hippocampus). Histological analysis revealed no tissue damage associated with the FUS sonications.Conclusions: The motor movements and pupillary dilation observed in this study demonstrate the capability of FUS to modulate cortical and subcortical brain structures without inducing any damage. The variety of responses observed here demonstrates the capability of FUS to perform functional brain mapping.

The development of phantom materials for elasticity imaging is reported in this paper. These materials were specifically designed to provide nonlinear stress/strain relationship that can be controlled independently of the small strain shear modulus of the material. The materials are mixtures of agar and gelatin gels. Oil droplet dispersions in these materials provide further control of the small strain shear modulus and the nonlinear parameter of the material. Since these materials are mostly water, they are assumed to be incompressible under typical experimental conditions in elasticity imaging. The Veronda-Westman model for strain energy density provided a good fit to all materials used in this study. Materials with a constant gelatin concentration (3.0% dry weight) but varying agar concentration (0.6-2.8% dry weight) demonstrated the same power law relationship between elastic modulus and agar concentration found for pure agar (1.89 +/- 0.02), consistent with percolation theory, and provided a consistent nonlinearity parameter of 4.5 +/- 0.3. The insights provided by this study will form the basis for stable elastography phantoms with stiffness and nonlinear stress/strain relationships in the background that differ from those in the target.

Phantoms mimicking the specific properties of biological tissues are essential to fully characterize medical devices. Water-based materials are commonly used to manufacture phantoms for ultrasound and optical imaging techniques. However, these materials have disadvantages, such as easy degradation and low temporal stability. In this study, we propose an oil-based new tissue-mimicking material for ultrasound and optical imaging, with the advantage of presenting low temporal degradation. A styrene-ethylene/butylene-styrene (SEBS) copolymer in mineral oil samples was made varying the SEBS concentration between 5%–15%, and low-density polyethylene (LDPE) between 0%−9%. Acoustic properties, such as the speed of sound and the attenuation coefficient, were obtained using frequencies ranging from 1–10 MHz, and were consistent with that of soft tissues. These properties were controlled varying SEBS and LDPE concentration. To characterize the optical properties of the samples, the diffuse reflectance and transmittance were measured. Scattering and absorption coefficients ranging from 400 nm–1200 nm were calculated for each compound. SEBS gels are a translucent material presenting low optical absorption and scattering coefficients in the visible region of the spectrum, but the presence of LDPE increased the turbidity. Adding LDPE increased the absorption and scattering of the phantom materials. Ultrasound and photoacoustic images of a heterogeneous phantom made of LDPE/SEBS containing a spherical inclusion were obtained. Annatto dye was added to the inclusion to enhance the optical absorbance. The results suggest that copolymer gels are promising for ultrasound and optical imaging, making them also potentially useful for photoacoustic imaging.

Aspects of magnetic resonance relaxation measurements in human tissues are discussed. The influence of pulse sequences and parameters are compared and analyzed for different tissues. By controlling the acquisition parameters and data fitting the relaxation rate can be useful in several clinical situations. The influence of repetition and echo time, predicted in sequences of signal acquisition, on measurement of transversal relaxation time (T2) was evaluate using simulated MRI signal.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a classic model of monophasic neuronal and axonal injury, in which tissue damage mainly occurs at the moment of trauma. There is some evidence of delayed progression of the neuronal and axonal loss. Our purpose was to test the hypothesis that quantitative MR imaging techniques can estimate the biologic changes secondary to delayed neuronal and axonal loss after TBI.