Abstract
High-resolution quantification of heterogeneous brain biomechanical properties has long been an important topic. Longitudinal shear waves (LSWs) can be used to assess the longitudinal Young's modulus, but contact excitation methods have been used in most previous studies. We propose an air-coupled ultrasound transducer-based optical coherence elastography (AcUT-OCE) technique for noncontact excitation and detection of LSWs in samples and assessment of the nonuniformity of the brain's biomechanical properties. The air-coupled ultrasonic transducer (AcUT) for noncontact excitation of LSWs in the sample has a center frequency of 250 kHz. Phase-resolved Doppler optical coherence tomography (OCT) was used to image and reconstruct the propagation behavior of LSWs and surface ultrasound waves at high resolution. An agar phantom model was used to verify the feasibility of the experimental protocol, and experiments with ex vivo porcine brain samples were used to assess the nonuniformity of the brain biomechanical properties. LSWs with velocities of 0.83 ± 0.11 m/s were successfully excited in the agar phantom model. The perivascular elastography results in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) of the ex vivo porcine brains showed that the Young's modulus was significantly higher in the longitudinal and transverse directions on the left side of the cerebral vessels than on the right side and that the Young's modulus of the PFC decreased with increasing depth. The AcUT-OCE technique, as a new scheme for LSW applications in in vivo elastography, can be used for noncontact excitation of LSWs in brain tissue and high-resolution detection of heterogeneous brain biomechanical properties.