In vivo imaging of blood flow in murine brain using angular coherence methods

摘要

Recently, ultrafast Doppler techniques have been proposed for imaging brain and other slow flow targets. These techniques rely on synthetic focusing and the use of large ensemble lengths to separate slow-flow signal from the stationary clutter, but are susceptible to high acoustic and thermal noise. We have recently developed the short-lag angular coherence (SLAC) method, which suppresses the incoherent portion of the beam-summed signals and utilizes fast beamforming techniques for processing large Doppler ensembles. Here, we demonstrate SLAC-based PD by imaging blood flow in the brain of a mouse through the intact skull and show improved sensitivity compared to conventional PD.