Transcranial adaptive aberration correction using deep learning for phased-array ultrasound therapy

This study aims to explore the feasibility of a deep learning approach to correct the distortion caused by the skull, thereby developing a transcranial adaptive focusing method for safe ultrasonic treatment in opening of the blood–brain barrier (BBB). However, aberration correction often requires significant computing power and time to ensure the accuracy of phase correction. This is due to the need to solve the evolution procedure of the sound field represented by numerous discretized grids. A combined method is proposed to train the phase prediction model for correcting the phase accurately and quickly. The method comprises pre-segmentation, k-Wave simulation, and a 3D U-net-based network. We use the k-Wave toolbox to construct a nonlinear simulation environment consisting of a 256-element phased array, a small piece of skull, and water. The skull sound speed sample combining with the phase delay serves as input for the model training. The focus volume and grating lobe level obtained by the proposed approach were the closest to those obtained by the time reversal method in all relevant approaches. Furthermore, the mean peak value obtained by the proposed approach was no less than 77% of that of the time reversal method. In this study, the computational cost of each sample's phase delay was no more than 0.05 s, which was 1/200th of the time reversal method. The proposed method eliminates the complexity of numerical calculation processes requiring consideration of more acoustic parameters, while circumventing the substantial computational resource demands and time-consuming challenges to traditional numerical approaches. The proposed method enables rapid, precise, and adaptive transcranial aberration correction on the 3D skull-based conditions, overcoming the potential inaccuracies in predicting the focal position or the acoustic energy distribution from 2D simulations. These results show the possibility of the proposed approach enabling near-real-time correction of skull-induced phase aberrations to achieve transcranial focus, thereby offering a novel option for treating brain diseases through temporary BBB opening.