title: A review of numerical and experimental compensation techniques for skull-induced phase aberrations in transcranial focused ultrasound.
abstract: The development of phased array transducers and their integration with magnetic resonance (MR) guidance and thermal monitoring has established transcranial MR-guided focused ultrasound (tcMRgFUS) as an attractive non-invasive modality for neurosurgical interventions. The presence of the skull, however, compromises the efficiency of transcranial FUS (tcFUS) therapy, as its heterogeneous nature and acoustic characteristics induce significant phase aberrations and energy attenuation, especially at the higher acoustic frequencies employed in tcFUS thermal therapy. These aberrations may distort and shift the acoustic focus as well as induce heating at the patient's scalp and skull bone. Phased array transducers feature hundreds of elements that can be driven individually, each with its own phase and amplitude. This feature allows for compensation of skull-induced aberrations by calculation and application of appropriate phase and amplitude corrections. In this paper, we illustrate the importance of precise refocusing and provide a comprehensive review of the wide variety of numerical and experimental techniques that have been used to estimate these corrections.
authors: IT'IS Foundation for Research on Information Technologies in Society , Zurich , Switzerland .
authors: Adamos
authors: A
authors: Kyriakou
authors: Esra
authors: E
authors: Neufeld
authors: Beat
authors: B
authors: Werner
authors: Margarethus Marius
authors: MM
authors: Paulides
authors: Gabor
authors: G
authors: Szekely
authors: Niels
authors: N
authors: Kuster
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016477:Artifacts; D003952:Diagnostic Imaging; D057086:High-Intensity Focused Ultrasound Ablation / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000295:instrumentation; D006801:Humans; D012886:Skull; D014159:Transducers