Motion analysis of artery pulsation in neonatal cranial ultrasonogram

摘要

Abstract: Using an optical-flow technique, we have quantitatively analyzed tissue motion due to artery pulsation accompanied with blood flow in a neonatal cranial ultrasonogram. The tissue motion vector was successfully calculated at each pixel in a series of echo images (32 frames, 640 $MUL 480 pixels/frame, 8 bits/pixel, 33 ms/frame) taken in the brightness mode by using an ultrasound probe of 5.0 MHz. The optical-flow technique used was a gradient method combined with local optimization for 3 $MUL 3 neighbors. From 2D mappings of tissue motion vectors and their time-sequence variations, it was found that the tissue motion due to artery pulsation revealed periodic to-and-fro motion synchronized with heartbeat (300 - 500 ms), clearly distinguishing from unwanted non-periodic motion due to the sway of neonatal head during diagnosis.!6