[HN Gopher] Noninvasive imaging method can penetrate deeper into...
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       Noninvasive imaging method can penetrate deeper into living tissue
        
       Author : rbanffy
       Score  : 136 points
       Date   : 2024-12-13 13:34 UTC (9 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (news.mit.edu)
 (TXT) w3m dump (news.mit.edu)
        
       | yread wrote:
       | Interesting, but probably not cheap:
       | 
       | > This is achieved by having more than 0.5 megawatts peak power
       | 
       | and
       | 
       | > The input peak power up to 1.60 MW (350-nJ pulse energy)
       | 
       | https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp2438
       | 
       | I wonder how much it affects/fries the tissue. HHG also has
       | issues with attenuation.
       | 
       | The paper abstract also says previous state of the art was 300um
       | not 200um like in the press release.
        
         | lukan wrote:
         | The question is, how long is that power needed.
         | 
         | Edit: "Ultrashort pulses" so likely not much. Because indeed,
         | you cannot burn the human. So the energy consumption likely
         | won't be a problem. Except that it might make the machine
         | expensive to build.
        
           | DennisP wrote:
           | In fact, GP quotes "350 nJ" which is a tiny fraction of a
           | watt-second.
        
         | chris_va wrote:
         | Bulk ordered, that is probably a ~$50k laser. Not nothing, but
         | on the scale of medical device costs, not terrible.
        
       | foobarbecue wrote:
       | 300 to 700 micrometers? So almost nothing to still almost
       | nothing.
       | 
       | Could anyone tell a difference in the before and after images,
       | other than one was grey and the other was blue? Structurally,
       | they looked identical to me.
       | 
       | Edit: internet tells me human cells are around 25um, so I guess
       | you can tens of cells deep
        
         | lucyv wrote:
         | I think this is just one "slice" of a full scan. The one in
         | blue has a lot more detail, and less noise.
        
         | oivey wrote:
         | The blue one is pretty significantly less noisy, and the
         | animation showing the two 3D reconstructions is much clearer.
         | The noise reduction probably has a lot to do with that.
        
         | excalibur wrote:
         | Yeah this isn't replacing MRI anytime soon.
        
       | scythe wrote:
       | >excitation of NAD(P)H at 1100 nm.
       | 
       | Better to understand this in context of the general techniques
       | like this:
       | 
       | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-infrared_window_in_biologi...
        
       | achillesheels wrote:
       | What about NIR spectroscopy? It penetrates the bio window at
       | >1200 microns now...not sure how this compares? I mean signal
       | processing wise, I would assume NIR does the trick.
        
         | achillesheels wrote:
         | Sorry meant 1200nm*
        
       | IshKebab wrote:
       | Hmm that before/after photo looks like they spent about 5 minutes
       | in Photoshop tweaking the curves. Is it really meant to
       | demonstrate an improvement?
        
       | morphle wrote:
       | Mary Lou Jepsen of openwater.cc [2] has managed to image neurons
       | and other large cell structures deep inside living bodies by
       | phase wave interferometry and descattering signals through human
       | tissues, even through skull and bone[1] using CMOS imageing
       | chips, lasers, ultrasonics and holographics. A thousand times
       | cheaper fMRI. She aims to get to realtime million pixels moving
       | picture resolutions of around a micron. Eventually she will be
       | able to read and write neurons or vibrate and someday maybe burn
       | cell tissues to destruction.
       | 
       | There are later presentations at the website where the technique
       | is better described and visualized, but [1] is a good quick place
       | to start and judge if you want to study their brainscanner in
       | more depth. There are patents and a few scientific publications
       | [3] that I'm aware of, but mostly many up to date talks with
       | demonstrations by startup founder Mary Lou [4]. And recently she
       | is open sourcing[5] parts of the hardware and software on github
       | [6] so we can start building our own lab setups and improve the
       | imageing software.
       | 
       | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awADEuv5vWY
       | 
       | [2] https://www.openwater.health/
       | 
       | [3]
       | https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=5Ni7umEAAAAJ...
       | 
       | [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_cHAH4T8Co
       | 
       | [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNFQtpNHufk
       | 
       | [6] https://github.com/OpenwaterHealth
        
         | germinalphrase wrote:
         | I remember she did a talk at the Long Now Foundation a while
         | back. My take away - which could be completely wrong - was that
         | they saw the potential to read and write memories.
        
       | kkfx wrote:
       | A better title and subtitle is needed though... "Noninvasive" and
       | "Using high-powered lasers" might sound a little bit an
       | oxymoron...
        
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