두개골 두께와 해면골 비율을 활용한 저강도 집속 초음파 유도 음압 예측 연구

초록

Transcranial Low-Intensity Focused Ultrasound (LIFUS) is a non-invasive neuromodulation technique that delivers focused acoustic energy to specific brain regions. While the skull has been reported as a primary factor affecting ultrasound transmission, the systematic influence of cancellous bone ratio remains insufficiently characterized. In this study, a simplified spherical skull model was used to perform 3D LIFUS simulations, analyzing the effects of skull thickness, cancellous bone ratio, and transducer distance on ultrasound transmission characteristics. 3D LIFUS simulations were performed with systematically varied skull thickness (4–12 mm), cancellous bone ratio(0–60%), and transducer distance (4–12 mm), resulting in a total of 1,053 simulation conditions. Simulations were evaluated based on peak pressure and focal volume. Pearson correlation analysis was performed to assess the statistical relationships between simulation outcomes and three structural variables. Machine learning models, including Linear Regression, Random Forest, XGBoost, and Support Vector Regression (SVR), were trained on simulation datasets to predict peak pressure and focal volume. Skull thickness showed the strongest relationship with both peak pressure and focal volume. The cancellous bone ratio showed a statistically significant but negligible correlation with peak pressure (r=0.06, p<0.01) and a weak negative relationship with focal volume. Across all prediction targets, SVR consistently achieved the highest performance, followed by XGBoost and Random Forest, while Linear Regression showed the lowest accuracy. These findings indicate that skull thickness and cancellous bone ratio are key structural variables in LIFUS. The results of this study may serve as preliminary data for further investigation into prediction models incorporating individual skull properties.

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