Focusing of transcranial focused ultrasound requires knowledge of the speed of sound in the skull. Clinically, estimates of the speed of sound in the skull are obtained from a CT scan. We measure the acoustic velocity in several human skull fragments and correlate it to the average Hounsfield units, MR-Simulated-CT value (derived from an ultrashort echo time MR sequence), and R2* value of each fragment. Results show that both CT and MR can be used to accurately estimate the acoustic velocity in human skull bone and that replacing CT with MR to plan transcranial FUS treatments is feasible.
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