No abstract

Viscoelasticity of soft tissue is often related to pathology, and therefore, has become an important diagnostic indicator in the clinical assessment of suspect tissue. Surgeons, particularly within head and neck subsites, typically use palpation techniques for intra-operative tumor detection. This detection method, however, is highly subjective and often fails to detect small or deep abnormalities. Vibroacoustography (VA) and similar methods have previously been used to distinguish tissue with high-contrast, but a firm understanding of the main contrast mechanism has yet to be verified. The contributions of tissue mechanical properties in VA images have been difficult to verify given the limited literature on viscoelastic properties of various normal and diseased tissue. This paper aims to investigate viscoelasticity theory and present a detailed description of viscoelastic experimental results obtained in tissue-mimicking phantoms (TMPs) and ex vivo tissues to verify the main contrast mechanism in VA and similar imaging modalities. A spherical-tip micro-indentation technique was employed with the Hertzian model to acquire absolute, quantitative, point measurements of the elastic modulus (E), long term shear modulus (η), and time constant (τ) in homogeneous TMPs and ex vivo tissue in rat liver and porcine liver and gallbladder. Viscoelastic differences observed between porcine liver and gallbladder tissue suggest that imaging modalities which utilize the mechanical properties of tissue as a primary contrast mechanism can potentially be used to quantitatively differentiate between proximate organs in a clinical setting. These results may facilitate more accurate tissue modeling and add information not currently available to the field of systems characterization and biomedical research.PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone

The ability to reversibly and non-invasively modulate region-specific brain activity in vivo suggests Low Intensity Focused Ultrasound (LIFU) as potential therapeutics for neurological dysfunctions such as epilepsy and Parkinson’s disease. While in vivo studies provide evidence of the bioeffects of LIFU on neuronal activity, they merely hint at potential mechanisms but do not fully explain how this technology achieves these effects. One potential hypothesis is that LIFU produces local membrane depolarization by mechanically perturbing the neuronal cell membrane, or activating channels or other proteins embedded in the membrane. Proteins that sense mechanical perturbations of the membrane, such as those gated by membrane tension, are prime candidates for activating in response to LIFU and thus leading to the neurological responses that have been measured. Here we use the bacterial mechanosensitive channel MscL, which has been purified and reconstituted in liposomes, to determine how LIFU may affect the activation of this membrane-tension gated channel. Two bacterial voltage-gated channels, KvAP and NaK2K F92A channels were also studied. Surprisingly, the results suggest that ultrasound modulation and membrane perturbation does not induce channel gating, but rather induces pore formation at the membrane protein-lipid interface. However, in vesicles with high MscL mechanosensitive channel concentrations, apparent decreases in pore formation are observed, suggesting that this membrane-tension-sensitive protein may serve to increase the elasticity of the membrane, presumably because of expansion of the channel in the plane of the membrane independent of channel gating.

A tunable SrTiO3 solidly mounted bulk acoustic wave resonator has been designed, fabricated, and tested. The solidly mounted resonator was implemented using an acoustical Bragg reflector of alternating high and low acoustic impedance layers. The resonator demonstrated a frequency tunability of 1%, from 5.87to5.81GHz with an applied bias of 0–7.5V, respectively. A return loss of −6.5dB was observed at an applied bias of 7.5V. The quality factor at the resonant frequency was 78 and relatively constant with applied bias. The effective electromechanical coupling coefficient was 2% and near linear with applied bias.

Two barium strontium titanate solidly mounted resonators with different bottom electrode surface roughnesses were fabricated and tested. The surface roughness of the bottom electrode was reduced by changing the deposition method of the SiO2 layer in the acoustic Bragg reflector in the solidly mounted resonator. The surface roughness was reduced from 2.81 nm RMS to 1.45 nm RMS. This reduction in the surface roughness contributed to a significant increase in the quality factor of the resonator. The quality factor for the device with a smooth platinum bottom electrode was 110 to 87 over a bias range of 5 to 40 V, and for the device with a rough platinum bottom electrode it was 1 to 31 over the same bias range. The effective electromechanical coupling coefficient was 4% at 40 V and 3.4% at 40 V for the smooth and rough platinum bottom electrodes, respectively.