Functional Ultrasound Neuroimaging

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Medical Imaging
• Biophysics

Background:

• Functional ultrasound (fUS) is an advanced neuroimaging technique.
• It measures cerebral blood volume changes to infer neuronal activity.
• fUS provides high spatiotemporal resolution imaging in various species.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demystify the principles and signal nature of fUS for neuroscientists.
• To present the current state of fUS hardware and applications.
• To identify future research and development directions for fUS.

Main Methods:

• Explanation of the physical basis of the fUS signal.
• Detailed principles of the fUS imaging method.
• Review of current hardware implementations and applications.

Main Results:

• fUS enables volumetric imaging of the entire mouse brain.
• The method is applicable to head-fixed and freely behaving animals.
• fUS has been successfully applied across species, including primates and humans.

Conclusions:

• fUS is a maturing neuroimaging technology with broad applicability.
• Understanding fUS principles is crucial for its wider adoption.
• Further improvements in fUS technology are anticipated.