Impact of acoustic property uncertainty on transcranial ultrasound simulation

Skull attenuation and absorption uncertainty drives the largest variability in transcranial ultrasound simulations, with peak brain intensity varying roughly threefold across reported skull attenuation ranges.

• Why it matters: Property measurements for skull and brain vary widely, and it is unclear how this uncertainty propagates into estimated intensity and temperature rise for TUS planning.
• What they did: The study compiled literature-based bounds for seven acoustic and thermal properties and tested their individual effects on simulated intensity and temperature rise using PRESTUS/k-Wave and BabelBrain.
• The result: Variations in skull attenuation produced about threefold peak brain intensity uncertainty, while skull absorption most strongly affected temperature rise in the skull; combining bounds bracketed transmission and heating, and default toolbox properties gave similar brain intensity but divergent skull heating.

AI summary of the abstract · may contain errors · not medical advice · read the paper.