Monkey brain cortex imaging by use of photoacoustic tomography

Photoacoustic tomography (PAT) is adopted to image the brain cortex of monkeys through the intact scalp and skull ex vivo. The reconstructed PAT image shows the main structure of the blood vessels on the monkey brain cortex. For comparison, the brain cortex is imaged without the scalp then imaged again without the scalp and skull. Ultrasound attenuation through the skull is also measured at various angles of incidence to illuminate the effect of the incident angle. This study demonstrates that PAT of the brain cortex is capable of surviving the ultrasound signal attenuation and distortion caused by a considerably thick skull.