An open-source phase correction toolkit for transcranial focused ultrasound

Area of Science:

• Medical Physics
• Biomedical Engineering
• Acoustic Imaging

Background:

• Skull bone aberrations significantly distort transcranial focused ultrasound (tFUS) focal points.
• Accurate phase correction is crucial for effective tFUS applications, including non-invasive therapies and diagnostics.
• Existing methods may lack efficiency or adaptability in clinical settings.

Purpose of the Study:

• To design and evaluate a novel ray-based phase correction toolkit for tFUS.
• To assess the feasibility and performance of this toolkit in compensating for skull-induced phase aberrations.
• To provide a practical solution for improving tFUS precision in clinical environments.

Main Methods:

• Development of a ray-based computational toolkit for phase aberration correction.
• Implementation of the toolkit for transcranial focused ultrasound simulations and experiments.
• Quantitative analysis of focal pressure enhancement and computation time.

Main Results:

• The phase correction toolkit significantly improved peak pressure at the focal area by over 130% for two targets.
• Achieved a rapid computation time of approximately 402 milliseconds per sonication.
• Demonstrated the toolkit's effectiveness in compensating for skull-induced phase distortions.

Conclusions:

• The developed ray-based software serves as an efficient toolkit for phase correction in tFUS.
• It effectively compensates for aberrated phases caused by skull bone, enhancing focal precision.
• The toolkit is suitable for integration into clinical environments for improved tFUS treatments.