Transcranial Functional Ultrasound – An Alternative to fMRI
Using custom algorithms, researchers created "virtual sensors" under the skull to measure brain activity with functional transcranial ultrasound.
There has been multiple proposals over the last few years to use ultrasound instead of MRI to do functional imaging of the brain. Non-invasively scanning the brain for activation patterns using fMRI has propelled the field of Cognitive Neuropsychology massively. But the tech is bulky, expensive and resolution is a major limitation.Ultrasound promises to eliviate some of those issues.
Why doesn't it exist yet?
In the past there has been trouble with getting the ultrasound signal through the skull into the brain and back. Distortion and signal strength have now been tackled by a small group of hackers in only 8 days. Using custom algorithms they create "virtual sensors" within the skull to measure brain activity.
Why bother?
Because this technology might be significantly cheaper and have higher resolution at the same time.Read their full story here:
Raffi Hotter
Best thing? It is Open source!
Github Repo: https://github.com/brain-hack-2024/transcranial-ultrasound/