Linear-array based photoacoustic images are reconstructed using the conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming method. Although the DAS beamformer is well suited for PA image formation, reconstructed images are often afflicted by noises, sidelobes, and other intense artifacts due to inaccurate assumptions of PA signal correlation. The work aims to develop an inversion method that reduces the occurrence of sidelobes and artifacts and improves image quality performance. We present a novel beamformer based on higher-order signal correlation, where more number of delayed PA signals are combined and summed up than the conventional delay-multiply-and-sum (DMAS). The proposed technique provides efficient improvements in resolution, contrast, and SNR compared to the traditional beamformers. Computational complexity in this method is shrunk to the same order of DAS $O(N)$. Therefore, this beamformer can be implemented in real-time PA image reconstruction. A GPU based study was performed on computation time. Proposed method almost executes in the same time frame of DAS and real-time DMAS. A validation study of the algorithm was accomplished both numerically and experimentally. Higher-order DMAS beamformers demonstrate superior reconstruction in all cases. The quantitative evaluation of the ex-vivo phantom shows that the proposed method leads to 51% and 6% improvement in FWHM, 81% and 39% improvement in SNR compared to DAS and DMAS, respectively. Conclusively, the proposed algorithm is very much potential and promising in real-time photoacoustic imaging and its applications.
Photoacoustic imaging has emerged in the past decades. Compared with the traditional medical imaging mode, it has better imaging performance and has great development potential in the field of biological imaging. In traditional photoacoustic microscopy, a single laser pulse is generally used to irradiate the sample to produce photoacoustic signal. And signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is a very important indicator for photoacoustic imaging. In order to obtain the image with high SNR, multiple acquisition or increasing laser pulse energy is usually adopted. The former will lead to slower imaging spee…
Delay-and-sum (DAS) algorithms are widely used for beamforming in linear array photoacoustic imaging systems and are characterized by fast execution. However, these algorithms suffer from various drawbacks like low resolution, low contrast, high sidelobe artifacts and lack of visual coherence. More recently, adaptive weighting was introduced to improve the reconstruction image quality. Unfortunately, the existing state-of-the-art adaptive beamforming algorithms are computationally expensive and do not consider the specific noise characteristics of the acquired ultrasonic signal. In this articl…
We present the first label-free, non-contact, in-vivo imaging of the ocular vasculature using photoacoustic remote sensing (PARS) microscopy. Both anterior and posterior segments mouse eye were imaged. Vasculature of iris, sclera and retina tissues were clearly resolved. To best of our knowledge this the first study showing non-contact photoacoustic imaging conducted on in-vivo ocular tissue. We believe that PARS microscopy has the potential to advance the diagnosis and treatment of ocular diseases.
We proposed a deconvolution optical-resolution photoacoustic microscope for high -resolution imaging of brain. The focal spot of the photoacoustic microscopy is measured to obtain the lateral PSF (point spread function) of the system. Making the measured PSF as the initial system PSF to perform Lucy- Richardson (LR) deconvolution. The image resolution of cerebral vasculature obtained by this method is higher. The full width at half maximum (FWHM) of the width of blood vessel before and after deconvolution are 7 micrometers and 3.6 micrometers, respectively, and the image definition is increase…
Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a promising approach to realize in vivo transcranial cerebral vascular imaging. However, the strong attenuation and distortion of the photoacoustic wave caused by the thick porous skull greatly affect the imaging quality. In this study, we designed a convolutional neural network (CNN) with a U-Net architecture to extract the effective photoacoustic information hidden in the speckle patterns; obtained vascular network images datasets under porous media through simulation and experiment, and trained the network weights respectively. The results show that the propos…
Photoacoustic Computed Tomography (PACT) is a major configuration of photoacoustic imaging, a hybrid noninvasive modality for both functional and molecular imaging. PACT has rapidly gained importance in the field of biomedical imaging due to superior performance as compared to conventional optical imaging counterparts. However, the overall cost of developing a PACT system is one of the challenges towards clinical translation of this novel technique. The cost of a typical commercial PACT system originates from optical source, ultrasound detector, and data acquisition unit. With growing applicat…
This paper reports an aluminum nitride (AlN) multi-frequency piezoelectric micromachined ultrasound transducers (MF-PMUT) array for photoacoustic (PA) imaging, where the broadened bandwidth is beneficial to improve imaging resolution. Specifically, PMUT based on micro-electromechanical systems (MEMS) technology is suitable for PA endoscopic imaging of blood vessels and bronchi due to its miniature size. More importantly, AlN is a non-toxic material, which makes it harmless for biomedical applications. In this work, a MF-PMUT array are designed and fabricated for PAI. The device's vibration mod…
In this chapter, we will give a brief overview of fundus photography, SLO, and OCT while discussing photoacoustic imaging potential as the next major ocular imaging modality.
Photoacoustic imaging is a promising imaging technique for human brain due to its high sensitivity and functional imaging ability. However, the skull would cause strong attenuation and distortion to the photoacoustic signals, which makes non-invasive transcranial imaging difficult. In this work, the temporal bone is selected as an imaging window to minimize the influence of the skull. Moreover, non-line-of-sight photoacoustic imaging is introduced to enhance the field of view, where the skull is considered as a reflector. Simulation studies are carried out to show that the image quality can be…
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) is a hybrid imaging modality, which combines the high optical contrast of pure optical imaging and the high penetration depth of ultrasound imaging. However, photoacoustic image dataset with good quality and large quantity is lacking. In this paper, we mainly talk about how to generate a practical photoacoustic dataset. Firstly, we extracted 389 3D vessel volumes from CT whole-lung scan database, and enhanced the blood vessel structures. Then for each 3D vessel volume, we embedded it into a three-layer cubic phantom to formulate a skin tissue model, whi…
Simultaneous 3D co-registered perfusion and oxygenation with ULM, photoacoustic imaging, and a planar matrix array
Sorbonne Université（索邦大学）；CNRS（法国国家科学研究中心）；Inserm（法国国家健康与医学研究院）；Laboratoire d’Imagerie Biomédicale, LIB（生物医学成像实验室）；Université Paris Cité（巴黎西岱大学）；Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers（科尔德洛耶研究中心）；Institut Cochin（科尚研究所）；Department of Nuclear Medicine, Hôpital Pitié Salpêtrière, APHP（皮蒂埃-萨尔佩特里埃医院核医学科）；PARCC（PARCC研究中心）；Service de Radiologie, AP-HP, Hôpital européen Georges Pompidou（乔治·蓬皮杜欧洲医院放射科）
As an emerging medical diagnostic technology, photoacoustic imaging has been implemented for both preclinical and clinical applications. For clinical convenience, a handheld free scan photoacoustic tomography (PAT) system providing 3D imaging capability is essentially needed, which has potential for surgical navigation and disease diagnosis. In this paper, we proposed a free scan 3D PAT (fsPAT) system based on a handheld linear array ultrasound probe. A global positioning system (GPS) is applied for ultrasound probes coordinate acquisition. The proposed fsPAT can simultaneously realize real ti…
Spreading depolarization (SD) is a self-propagating wave of near-complete neuronal depolarization that is abundant in a wide range of neurological conditions, including stroke. SD was only recently documented in humans and is now considered a therapeutic target for brain injury, but the mechanisms related to SD in complex brains are not well understood. While there are numerous approaches to interventional imaging of SD on the exposed brain surface, measuring SD deep in brain is so far only possible with low spatiotemporal resolution and poor contrast. Here, we show that photoacoustic imaging …
Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a promising medical imaging modality providing the spatial resolution of ultrasound (US) imaging and the contrast of pure optical imaging. For linear-array PAI, a beamformer has to be used as the reconstruction algorithm. Delay-and-sum (DAS) is the most prevalent beamforming algorithm in PAI. However, using DAS beamformer leads to low resolution images along with significant effects of the off-axis signals. Coherence factor (CF) is a weighting method in which each pixel of the reconstructed image is weighted, based on the spatial spectrum of the aperture, to impr…
Early diagnosis of ocular diseases improves the understanding of pathophysiology and helps with accurate monitoring and effective treatment. Advanced multimodal ocular imaging platforms play a crucial role in the visualization of the ocular components and provide clinicians with a valuable tool for evaluating different eye diseases. Here, for the first time, we present a non-contact, multimodal photoacoustic remote sensing (PARS) microscopy and swept-source optical coherence tomography (SS-OCT) for in-vivo functional and structural imaging of the eye. The system provides complementary imaging …
We present a photoacoustic computed tomography investigation on a healthy human finger, to image blood vessels with a focus on vascularity across the interphalangeal joints. The cross-sectional images were acquired using an imager specifically developed for this purpose. The images show rich detail of the digital blood vessels with diameters between 100 $μ$m and 1.5 mm in various orientations and at various depths. Different vascular layers in the skin including the subpapillary plexus could also be visualized. Acoustic reflections on the finger bone of photoacoustic signals from skin were vis…
Fully three-dimensional sound speed-corrected multi-wavelength photoacoustic breast tomography
University of Twente（特温特大学）；Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica（数学与计算机科学中心）；University College London（伦敦大学学院）；Medisch Spectrum Twente Hospital（特温特医学频谱医院）；P.A. Imaging R&D B.V.；Brno University of Technology（布尔诺理工大学）；Imasonic SAS；Ekspla UAB；Leiden University Medical Center（莱顿大学医学中心）；Center for Physical Science and Technology（物理科学与技术中心）；Ziekenhuisgroep Twente（特温特医院集团）
Imaging technologies have been developed to assist physicians and dentist in the detection of various diseases. Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a new imaging technique that shows great promise to image soft tissues. The prototype of PAI system in this study utilized a non-ionizing 532nm continue-wave diode laser illumination to image oral soft tissue. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of diode laser intensity modulation to the Photoacoustic image quality. Samples in this study were oral soft tissues from six Sprague Dawley rats imaged by using the PAI system. To determine the …
Non-invasive imaging of deep blood vessels for mapping hemodynamics remains an open quest in biomedical optical imaging. Although pure optical imaging techniques offer rich optical contrast of blood and have been reported to measure blood flow, they are generally limited to surface imaging within the optical diffusion limit of about one millimeter. Herein, we present photoacoustic vector tomography (PAVT), breaking through the optical diffusion limit to image deep blood flow with speed and direction quantification. PAVT synergizes the spatial heterogeneity of blood and the photoacoustic contra…
We developed a Bessel-beam photoacoustic microscopical simulation platform by using the k-Wave: MATLAB toolbox. The simulation platform uses the ring slit method to generate Bessel beam. By controlling the inner and outer radius of the ring slit, the depth-of-field (DoF) of Bessel beam can be controlled. And the large volumetric image is obtained by point scanning. The simulation experiments on blood vessels was carried out to demonstrate the feasibility of the simulation plat-form. This simulation work can be used as an auxiliary tool for the research of Bessel-beam photoacoustic microscopy.
Photoacoustic imaging has shown great promise for medical imaging, where optical energy absorption by blood haemoglobin is used as the contrast mechanism. A numerical method was developed for the in-silico assessment of the photoacoustic image reconstruction of the brain. Image segmentation techniques were used to prepare a digital phantom from MR images. Light transport through brain tissue was modelled using a Finite Element approach. The resulting acoustic pressure was then estimated by pulsed photoacoustics considerations. The forward acoustic wave propagation was modelled by the linearize…
We have developed a multimodal photoacoustic remote sensing (PARS) microscope combined with swept source optical coherence tomography for in vivo, non-contact retinal imaging. Building on the proven strength of multiwavelength PARS imaging, the system is applied for estimating retinal oxygen saturation in the rat retina. The capability of the technology is demonstrated by imaging both microanatomy and the microvasculature of the retina in vivo. To our knowledge this is the first time a non-contact photoacoustic imaging technique is employed for in vivo oxygen saturation measurement in the reti…
German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)（德国癌症研究中心）；Heidelberg University（海德堡大学）
One of the main applications of photoacoustic (PA) imaging is the recovery of functional tissue properties, such as blood oxygenation (sO2). This is typically achieved by linear spectral unmixing of relevant chromophores from multispectral photoacoustic images. Despite the progress that has been made towards quantitative PA imaging (qPAI), most sO2 estimation methods yield poor results in realistic settings. In this work, we tackle the challenge by employing learned spectral decoloring for quantitative photoacoustic imaging (LSD-qPAI) to obtain quantitative estimates for blood oxygenation. LSD…
Multispectral photoacoustic (PA) imaging is a prime modality to monitor hemodynamics and changes in blood oxygenation (sO2). Although sO2 changes can be an indicator of brain activity both in normal and in pathological conditions, PA imaging of the brain has mainly focused on small animal models with lissencephalic brains. Therefore, the purpose of this work was to investigate the usefulness of multispectral PA imaging in assessing sO2 in a gyrencephalic brain. To this end, we continuously imaged a porcine brain as part of an open neurosurgical intervention with a handheld PA and ultrasonic (U…
Photoacoustic imaging of human brain function through intact adult skulls
California Institute of Technology（加州理工学院）；Case Western Reserve University（凯斯西储大学）；University of Southern California（南加州大学）；Midjourney, Inc.（Midjourney公司）；Changsha University of Science and Technology（长沙理工大学）；Peking University（北京大学）；European Molecular Biology Laboratory（欧洲分子生物学实验室）；Rice University（莱斯大学）；Tsinghua University（清华大学）
Image sensors are the backbone of many imaging technologies of great importance to modern sciences, being particularly relevant in biomedicine. An ideal image sensor should be usable through all the electromagnetic spectrum (large bandwidth), it should be fast (millions of frames per second) to fulfil the needs of many microscopy applications, and it should be cheap, in order to ensure the sustainability of the healthcare system. However, current image sensor technologies have fundamental limitations in terms of bandwidth, imaging rate or price. In here, we briefly sketch the principles of an …
Photoacoustic computed tomography (PACT) is an emerging computed imaging modality that exploits optical contrast and ultrasonic detection principles to form images of the absorbed optical energy density within tissue. When the imaging system employs conventional piezoelectric ultrasonic transducers, the ideal photoacoustic (PA) signals are degraded by the transducers' acousto-electric impulse responses (EIRs) during the measurement process. If unaccounted for, this can degrade the accuracy of the reconstructed image. In principle, the effect of the EIRs on the measured PA signals can be amelio…
Herein we report the first in-human transcranial imaging of brain function using photoacoustic computed tomography. Functional responses to benchmark motor tasks were imaged on both the skull-less and the skull-intact hemispheres of a hemicraniectomy patient. The observed brain responses in these preliminary results demonstrate the potential of photoacoustic computed tomography for achieving transcranial functional imaging.
Photoacoustic imaging of interphalangeal peripheral joints is of interest in the context of using the synovial membrane as a surrogate marker of rheumatoid arthritis. Previous work has shown that ultrasound produced by absorption of light at the epidermis reflects on the bone surfaces within the finger. When the reflected signals are backprojected in the region of interest, artifacts are produced, confounding interpretation of the images. In this work, we present an approach where the photoacoustic signals known to originate from the epidermis, are treated as virtual ultrasound transmitters, a…
Photoacoustic imaging develops very fast in recent years due to its superior performance in many preclinical and clinical applications. However, it is still in a developing stage, and a lot of experiments have to be performed in a simulation setting. To simulate photoacoustic imaging in a computer, k-Wave is currently the most popular MATLAB toolbox. Lots of research groups choose k-Wave toolbox to perform the forward projection process, which also can be described as forward model. However, by solving complex partial differential equation, k-Wave suffers a lot from computation time. To accele…
German Cancer Research Center（德国癌症研究中心）；Heidelberg University（海德堡大学）
Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is a promising emerging imaging modality that enables spatially resolved imaging of optical tissue properties up to several centimeters deep in tissue, creating the potential for numerous exciting clinical applications. However, extraction of relevant tissue parameters from the raw data requires the solving of inverse image reconstruction problems, which have proven extremely difficult to solve. The application of deep learning methods has recently exploded in popularity, leading to impressive successes in the context of medical imaging and also finding first use in…
University of California, San Diego（加利福尼亚大学圣迭戈分校）；Qualcomm Institute, University of California, San Diego（加利福尼亚大学圣迭戈分校高通研究所）
Low fluence illumination sources can facilitate clinical transition of photoacoustic imaging because they are rugged, portable, affordable, and safe. However, these sources also decrease image quality due to their low fluence. Here, we propose a denoising method using a multi-level wavelet-convolutional neural network to map low fluence illumination source images to its corresponding high fluence excitation map. Quantitative and qualitative results show a significant potential to remove the background noise and preserve the structures of target. Substantial improvements up to 2.20, 2.25, and 4…
Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) combines the advantages of the spectroscopic optical absorption contrast and acoustic resolution with deep penetration, and becomes an important novel biomedical imaging technology for scientific research and clinical diagnosis. In this paper, an imaging size-adjustable PAT system is proposed for clinical applications, which can adapt for different size imaging targets. Comparing with the conventional PAT system setup which with a fixed radius ring shape ultrasound transducer (UT) array, the proposed system, which is based on sectorial ultrasound transducer array…
In recent years, photoacoustics has attracted intensive research for both anatomical and functional biomedical imaging. However, the physical interaction between photoacoustic generated endogenous waves and an exogenous ultrasound wave is a largely unexplored area. Here, we report the initial results about the interaction of photoacoustic and external ultrasound waves leading to a micro-Doppler photoacoustic (mDPA) effect, which is experimentally observed and consistently modelled. It is based on a simultaneous excitation on the target with a pulsed laser and continuous wave (CW) ultrasound. T…
German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)（德国癌症研究中心（DKFZ））；Heidelberg University（海德堡大学）；HIDSS4Health - Helmholtz Information and Data Science School for Health（HIDSS4Health——亥姆霍兹健康信息与数据科学学院）；Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute（英国癌症研究院剑桥研究所）；University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）
Photoacoustic (PA) imaging has the potential to revolutionize functional medical imaging in healthcare due to the valuable information on tissue physiology contained in multispectral photoacoustic measurements. Clinical translation of the technology requires conversion of the high-dimensional acquired data into clinically relevant and interpretable information. In this work, we present a deep learning-based approach to semantic segmentation of multispectral photoacoustic images to facilitate image interpretability. Manually annotated photoacoustic {and ultrasound} imaging data are used as refe…
Quantitative Photoacoustic Imaging of Two-photon Absorption
University of Texas, Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；The Institute for Computational Engineering and Sciences (ICES), University of Texas, Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校计算工程与科学研究所）；Department of Mathematics, University of Texas, Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校数学系）
German Cancer Research Center（德国癌症研究中心）；Heidelberg University（海德堡大学）；University of Bern（伯尔尼大学）
Multispectral photoacoustic imaging (PAI) is an emerging imaging modality which enables the recovery of functional tissue parameters such as blood oxygenation. However, the underlying inverse problems are potentially ill-posed, meaning that radically different tissue properties may - in theory - yield comparable measurements. In this work, we present a new approach for handling this specific type of uncertainty by leveraging the concept of conditional invertible neural networks (cINNs). Specifically, we propose going beyond commonly used point estimates for tissue oxygenation and converting si…
Photoacoustic microscopy is becoming an important tool for the biomedical research. It has been widely used in biological researches, such as structural imaging of vasculature, brain structural and functional imaging, and tumor detection. The conventional optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy (OR- PAM) employs focused gaussian beam to achieve high lateral resolution by a microscope objective with high numerical apertures. Since the focused gaussian beam only has narrow depth range in focus, little detail in depth direction can be revealed. Here, we developed a synthetic multi-focus optic…
Photoacoustic imaging can achieve high-resolution three-dimensional visualization of optical absorbers at penetration depths ~ 1 cm in biological tissues by detecting optically-induced high ultrasound frequencies. Tomographic acquisition with ultrasound linear arrays offers an easy implementation of single-side access, parallelized and high-frequency detection, but usually comes with an image quality impaired by the directionality of the detectors. Indeed, a simple translation of the array perpendicularly to its median imaging plane is often used, but results both in a poor resolution in the t…
Significance: Quantitative measurement of blood oxygen saturation (sO$_2$) with photoacoustic (PA) imaging is one of the most sought after goals of quantitative PA imaging research due to its wide range of biomedical applications. Aim: A method for accurate and applicable real-time quantification of local sO$_2$ with PA imaging. Approach: We combine multiple illumination (MI) sensing with learned spectral decoloring (LSD); training on Monte Carlo simulations of spectrally colored absorbed energy spectra, in order to apply the trained models to real PA measurements. We validate our combined MI-…
In Photoacoustic imaging (PAI), the most prevalent beamforming algorithm is delay-and-sum (DAS) due to its simple implementation. However, it results in a low quality image affected by the high level of sidelobes. Coherence factor (CF) can be used to address the sidelobes in the reconstructed images by DAS, but the resolution improvement is not good enough compared to the high resolution beamformers such as minimum variance (MV). As a weighting algorithm in linear-array PAI, it was proposed to use high-resolution-CF (HRCF) weighting technique in which MV is used instead of the existing DAS in …
