The effects of desiccation on skull bone sound speed in porcine models

Pre- and postdesiccation sound speeds through ex vivo porcine skull specimens were determined by time-of-flight measurements with propagated broadband pulses centered at 0.97 MHz (Os 12.7 mm, -6-dB band-width = 58%). The measured longitudinal sound speed in the 13 porcine samples (predesiccation average sound speed = 1727 +/- 57 ms(-1)) changed by a statistically significant +2.3% after deionized water reconstitution (paired t-test, alpha = 0.05, p = 0.0332).