This work has been partially supported by the National governments and the European Union through the ENIAC JU project DeNeCoR under grant agreement number 324257. The authors would like to thank Prof. Giovanni Magenes, Prof. Piero Tortoli and Dr. Giosu&#232; Caliano for their precious support, supervision, and insightful comments that made this work possible. We are also grateful to Prof. Egidio D'Angelo and his group (BCC Lab.), together with Fondazione Istituto Neurologico C. Mondino, for providing the motion tracking and MR instrumentation, and to Giancarlo Germani for MR acquisitions. Finally, we'd like to thank Dr. Nicoletta Caramia, Dr. Alessandro Dallai and Ms. Barbara Mauti for their valuable technical support and Mr. Walter Volpi for providing the bovine brain.

<ol>
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The authors declare they have no competing financial interests.

Several works have been presented in the literature describing techniques that are similar or related to the protocol presented. These techniques are also based on the use of realistic targets, including fixed animal or cadaver brains, but they are mainly conceived for testing of digital registration methods of various sorts.
The protocol described here, however, has the specific purpose of testing US probes in different configurations in the early stages of development and, due to this, it fu...

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="925">
	<tbody>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">ULA-OP</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">University of Florence</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:415px;">Ultrasound imaging research system</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">3D imaging piezeoelectric probe</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Esaote s.p.a.</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">9600195000</td>
			<td>Mechanically-swept 3D ultrasound probe, model BL-433</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Linear-array piezoelectric probe</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Esaote s.p.a.</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">122001100</td>
			<td>Ultrasound linear array probe, model LA-533</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">CMUT probe</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">University Roma Tre</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Ultrasound linear array probe based on CMUT technology</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">MAGNETOM Skyra 3T MR scanner</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Siemens Healthcare</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>MR scanner</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Head coil</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Siemens Healthcare</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>32-channel head coil for MR imaging</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">NDI Polaris Vicra</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">NDI Medical</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">8700335001</td>
			<td>Optical motion tracking system</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Pointer tool</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">NDI Medical</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">8700340</td>
			<td>Passive pointer tool with 4 reflecting markers</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Clamp-equipped tool</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">NDI Medical</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">8700399</td>
			<td>Rigid body with 4 reflecting markers and a clamp to be connected to the US probe handle</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Bovine brain</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Brain of an adult bovine, from food suppliers</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Formalin solution</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>10% buffered formalin solution for bovine brain fixation - CAUTION, formalin is a toxic chemical substance and must be handled with care; specific regulations may also apply (see for instance US OSHA Standard 1910.1048 App A)</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Plastic container for anatomical parts</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Cilindrical plastic container with lid</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Glass spheres</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>3mm diameter spheres of Flint glass</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Agar</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>30 g, for phantom preparation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Glycerine</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">AEFFE Farmaceutici</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">A908005248</td>
			<td>100 g, for phantom preparation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Distilled water</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Solbat Gaysol</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">8027391000015</td>
			<td>870 g, for phantom preparation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Beaker</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Beaker used for the diluition of glycerine and agar in distilled water</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Lysoform</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Lever</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">8000680500014</td>
			<td>A benzalkonium chloride and water solution was used for the agar phantom preservation</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Polystyrene mannequin head</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Polyestirene model which was cutted and used to design the configuration of spheres&#39;patterns</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;">Green tissue marking dye for histology</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Colour used to mark the glass spheres&#39; positions on the bovine brain surface</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Yellow enamel</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Enamel used to colour the glass spheres implanted in the agar phantom</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Water tank</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>50x50x30 cm plastic tank filled degassed water up to a 15cm height&#160;</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Mechanical arm</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Esaote s.p.a.</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Mechanical arm clamped to the water tank border and used to held the probe in fixed positions</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Plate of synthetic resin</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Plate used as a support for the bovine brain positioning in the water tank</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Sewing threads</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Sewing thread segments used to immobilize the brain on the resin plate</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Adhesive tape</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Adhesive tape used to fix the sewing thread extremities onto the resin plate</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Plastic food container</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">N/A</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Sealed food container used for the agar phantom</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Notebook</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Lenovo</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">Z50-70</td>
			<td>Lenovo&#160; Z50-70, Intel(R) Core i7-4510U @ 2.0 GHz, 8 GB RAM</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Workstation</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Dell Inc.</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">T5810</td>
			<td>Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E3-1240v3 @ 3.40 GHz, 16 GB RAM</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Matlab</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">The MathWorks</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">R2013a</td>
			<td>Software tool, used for space transformation computation and 3D reconstruction from image planes</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">Paraview</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Kitware Inc.</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">v. 4.4.1</td>
			<td>Open-source software for 3D image processing and visualization</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">NDI Toolbox - ToolTracker Utility</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">NDI Medical</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">v. 4.007.007</td>
			<td>Software for marker position visualization and tracking in the NDI Polaris Vicra measurement volume</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">C++ data-logging software</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">NDI Medical</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">v. 4.007.007</td>
			<td>Software for marker position recording on a text log file</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="21">
			<td height="21" style="height:21px;width:240px;">ULA-OP software&#160;</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">University of Florence</td>
			<td style="width:104px;">N/A</td>
			<td>Software for real-time display and control of the ULA-OP system</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

an experimental protocol for assessing the performance of new ultrasound probes based on cmut technology in application to brain imaging

The possibility to perform an early and repeatable assessment of imaging performance is fundamental in the design and development process of new ultrasound (US) probes. Particularly, a more realistic analysis with application-specific imaging targets can be extremely valuable to assess the expected performance of US probes in their potential clinical field of application.
The experimental protocol presented in this work was purposely designed to provide an application-specific assessment procedure for newly-developed US probe prototypes based on Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (CMUT) technology in relation to brain imaging.
The protocol combines the use of a bovine brain fixed in formalin as the imaging target, which ensures both realism and repeatability of the described procedures, and of neuronavigation techniques borrowed from neurosurgery. The US probe is in fact connected to a motion tracking system which acquires position data and enables the superposition of US images to reference Magnetic Resonance (MR) images of the brain. This provides a means for human experts to perform a visual qualitative assessment of the US probe imaging performance and to compare acquisitions made with different probes. Moreover, the protocol relies on the use of a complete and open research and development system for US image acquisition, i.e. the Ultrasound Advanced Open Platform (ULA-OP) scanner.
The manuscript describes in detail the instruments and procedures involved in the protocol, in particular for&#160;the calibration, image acquisition and registration of US and MR images. The obtained results prove the effectiveness of the overall protocol presented, which is entirely open (within the limits of the instrumentation involved), repeatable, and covers the entire set of acquisition and processing activities for US images.

The main result achieved via the described protocol is the experimental validation of an effective and repeatable assessment procedure for the 2D and 3D imaging capabilities of US probe prototypes based on CMUT technology, in the prospective application to brain imaging. After implementing all the described protocol steps, an expert can then apply the visualization software functions (e.g. free orientation slicing, subset extraction, volume interpolation, etc.) to compar...

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An Experimental Protocol for Assessing the Performance of New Ultrasound Probes Based on CMUT Technology in Application to Brain Imaging

The development of new ultrasound (US) probes based on Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (CMUT) technology requires an early realistic assessment of imaging capabilities. We describe a repeatable experimental protocol for US image acquisition and comparison with magnetic resonance images, using an ex vivo bovine brain as an imaging target.

The possibility to perform an early and repeatable assessment of imaging performance is fundamental in the design and development process of new ...

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10.3K Views.  University of Pavia. The development of new ultrasound (US) probes based on Capacitive Micromachined Ultrasonic Transducer (CMUT) technology requires an early realistic assessment of imaging capabilities. We describe a repeatable experimental protocol for US image acquisition and comparison with magnetic resonance images, using an ex vivo bovine brain as an imaging target.