Researchers demonstrate an alternative way to produce highly detailed images of the brain
The gold standard in functional brain imaging for over two decades, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has transformed the landscape of research and clinical care. Yet, because of its cost and functional limitations, scientists have continued to look for new ways to see into the human brain.
Researchers from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), with the help of patients recovering from traumatic brain injury, have now demonstrated an alternative way to produce highly detailed images of the human brain. Their work, published in
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PACT creates in vivo 3D functional imaging of the brain
09 Jun 2021
Latest advance from Caltech group demonstrates photoacoustic tomography as route to brain imaging.
Lihong Wang: novel photoacoustic applications
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) builds on the principles of photoacoustic imaging to create images of blood vessels and angiographic structures.
The technique uses non-ionizing laser pulses to briefly heat up an absorbing target before allowing it to cool, causing an expansion that in turn creates an ultrasound signal. That signal can then be reconstructed in a manner analogous to functional MRI, generating an image showing the distribution of optical absorption inside the target.
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The technology, known as photoacoustic computerized tomography, or PACT, has been developed by Lihong Wang, Bren Professor of Medical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, as a method for imaging tissues and organs. Previous versions of the PACT technology have been shown capable of imaging the inner structures of a rat’s body; PACT is also capable of detecting tumors in human breasts, making it a possible alternative to mammograms.
Now, Wang has made further improvements to the technology that make it so precise and sensitive that it can detect even minute changes in the amount of blood traveling through very tiny blood vessels as well as the oxygenation level of that blood. Since blood flow increases to specific areas of the brain during cognitive tasks blood flow will increase to the visual cortex while you are watching a movie, for example a device that shows blood concentration and oxygenation changes can help researchers and medical professionals monitor brain activ
A Caltech professor, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Southern California, has demonstrated for the first time a new technology for.