TY - JOUR
T1 - Ex vivo evaluation of mouse brain elasticity using high-frequency ultrasound elastography
AU - Lay, Fang Yi
AU - Chen, Pei Yu
AU - Cheng, Hsiang Fan
AU - Kuo, Yu Min
AU - Huang, Chih Chung
N1 - Funding Information:
Manuscript received December 6, 2018; revised February 10, 2019 and March 10, 2019; accepted March 13, 2019. Date of publication March 18, 2019; date of current version November 20, 2019. This work was supported in part by the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan under Grant NHRI-EX107-10712EI, in part by the Ministry of Science and Technology of Taiwan under Grant MOST 107-2221-E-006-024-MY3, and in part by the Medical Device Innovation Center, National Cheng Kung University from the Featured Areas Research Center Program within the framework of the Higher Education Sprout Project by the Ministry of Education in Taiwan. (Corresponding author: Chih-Chung Huang.) F.-Y. Lay and P.-Y. Chen are with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, College of Engineering, National Cheng Kung University.
Publisher Copyright:
© 1964-2012 IEEE.
PY - 2019/12
Y1 - 2019/12
N2 - Objective: Most neurodegenerative diseases are highly linked with aging. The mechanical properties of the brain should be determined for predicting and diagnosing age-related brain diseases. A preclinical animal study is crucial for neurological disease research. However, estimation of the elasticity properties of different regions of mouse brains remains difficult because of the size of the brain. In this paper, high-frequency ultrasound elastography (HFUSE) based on shear wave imaging was proposed for mapping the stiffness of the mouse brain at different ages ex vivo. Methods: For HFUSE, a 40-MHz ultrasound array transducer with an ultrafast ultrasound imaging system was used in this paper. The accuracy and resolution during HFUSE were determined through a mechanical testing system and by conducting phantom experiments. Results: In the experiments, the error in the elastic modulus measurement was approximately 10% on average, and the axial resolution was 248 μm. Animal testing was conducted using mice that were 4 (young aged) and 11 (middle aged) months old. The elasticity distributions of the cortex and hippocampus in the mouse brains were obtained through HFUSE. Conclusion: The average shear moduli of the cortex and hippocampus were 3.84 and 2.33 kPa for the 4-month-old mice and 3.77 and 1.94 kPa for the 11-month-old mice, respectively. No statistical difference was observed in the cortex stiffness of mice of different ages. However, the hippocampus significantly softened with aging.
AB - Objective: Most neurodegenerative diseases are highly linked with aging. The mechanical properties of the brain should be determined for predicting and diagnosing age-related brain diseases. A preclinical animal study is crucial for neurological disease research. However, estimation of the elasticity properties of different regions of mouse brains remains difficult because of the size of the brain. In this paper, high-frequency ultrasound elastography (HFUSE) based on shear wave imaging was proposed for mapping the stiffness of the mouse brain at different ages ex vivo. Methods: For HFUSE, a 40-MHz ultrasound array transducer with an ultrafast ultrasound imaging system was used in this paper. The accuracy and resolution during HFUSE were determined through a mechanical testing system and by conducting phantom experiments. Results: In the experiments, the error in the elastic modulus measurement was approximately 10% on average, and the axial resolution was 248 μm. Animal testing was conducted using mice that were 4 (young aged) and 11 (middle aged) months old. The elasticity distributions of the cortex and hippocampus in the mouse brains were obtained through HFUSE. Conclusion: The average shear moduli of the cortex and hippocampus were 3.84 and 2.33 kPa for the 4-month-old mice and 3.77 and 1.94 kPa for the 11-month-old mice, respectively. No statistical difference was observed in the cortex stiffness of mice of different ages. However, the hippocampus significantly softened with aging.
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U2 - 10.1109/TBME.2019.2905551
DO - 10.1109/TBME.2019.2905551
M3 - Article
C2 - 30892196
AN - SCOPUS:85075805354
SN - 0018-9294
VL - 66
SP - 3426
EP - 3435
JO - IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
JF - IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering
IS - 12
M1 - 8668542
ER -