[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  : 189 points
       Date   : 2024-12-13 13:34 UTC (1 days 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.
        
           | akoboldfrying wrote:
           | Does it? I zoomed in on my phone as far as it would go, and
           | could still barely tell the difference. Unfortunately the
           | difference in hue makes it harder to tell _if_ there 's any
           | actual difference, because it swamps everything else.
           | 
           | Since they claim a more-than-doubling of visibility depth
           | over SoTA, I'm surprised they didn't pick a visual that
           | demonstrates _that_ quite radical improvement, over the
           | apparently marginal improvement in resolution at depths which
           | can already be managed.
        
             | geysersam wrote:
             | I also didn't distinguish any difference, don't see how the
             | choice of color improves the visualization. Honestly it
             | comes across as a bit deceptive.
        
         | 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.
        
         | tehjoker wrote:
         | It allows you to study things in-situ that are just under the
         | skin without opening things up. Useful!
        
         | danielheath wrote:
         | Radiologists spend 12 years studying to be able to interpret
         | imaging - as a lay person who has spent half that duration
         | looking at scans most days, I still can't really form any sort
         | of accurate picture of what's going on.
        
           | Pigalowda wrote:
           | Radiologists probably like the gray noisy image better
           | anyways!
        
           | dennis_jeeves2 wrote:
           | I have a suspicion that radiologists themselves may not know
           | what's going on. Essentially if you give a scan (with cannot
           | be easily interpreted by a semi-trained layman) to more than
           | one radiologists, you may get several different
           | interpretation.
           | 
           | Can some radiologist reading this confirm what I'm saying?
        
       | 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.
        
           | KennyBlanken wrote:
           | She can't even answer the FDA on "explain how this will
           | actually treat anything"
           | 
           | https://github.com/OpenwaterHealth/opw_regulatory/blob/9e151.
           | ..
        
         | westurner wrote:
         | From the OpenwaterHealth/opw_neuromod_sw README:
         | https://github.com/OpenwaterHealth/opw_neuromod_sw :
         | 
         | > _open-LIFU_ uses an array to precisely steer the ultrasound
         | focus to the target location, _while its wearable small size
         | allows transmission through the forehead into a precise spot
         | location in the brain even while the patient is moving._
         | 
         | Does it use one beam of the array to waveguide another beam?
         | For imaging or for treatment?
         | 
         | From "A simple technique to overcome self-focusing,
         | filamentation, supercontinuum generation, aberrations, depth
         | dependence and waveguide interface roughness using fs laser
         | processing" (2017)
         | https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-00589-8
         | https://scholar.google.com/scholar?start=10&hl=en&as_sdt=5,4...
         | :
         | 
         | > _We show that all these effects can be significantly reduced
         | if not eliminated using two coherent, ultrafast laser-beams
         | through a single lens - which we call the Dual-Beam technique.
         | Simulations and experimental measurements at the focus are used
         | to understand how the Dual-Beam technique can mitigate these
         | problems. The high peak laser intensity is only formed at the
         | aberration-free tightly localised focal spot, simultaneously,
         | suppressing unwanted nonlinear side effects for any intensity
         | or processing depth. Therefore, we believe this simple and
         | innovative technique makes the fs laser capable of much more at
         | even higher intensities than previously possible, allowing
         | applications in multi-photon processing, bio-medical imaging,
         | laser surgery of cells, tissue and in ophthalmology, along with
         | laser writing of waveguides._
        
         | KennyBlanken wrote:
         | When the best you can come up with are TED talks and videos on
         | a cryptocurrency youtube channel - and the only claim to fame
         | she has is that she co-founded a miserable failure of a project
         | (One Laptop Per Child) there are serious credibility issues.
         | 
         | Is there any peer reviewed research?
         | 
         | Is the collaborating with any established, published,
         | respected-in-their-field researchers?
         | 
         | After a decade of research, have they shown any actual pathway
         | or mechanism of treatment?
         | 
         | They're not helped by the FDA politely saying "you haven't
         | actually said how you intend for this thing to be used" and
         | "your protocols don't actually specify why they are safe" and
         | "no, we're not going to give you shit, because you haven't even
         | done animal studies or clinial studies" and "no, you can't just
         | _say_ that your device has no risk of injury or death ":
         | https://github.com/OpenwaterHealth/opw_regulatory/blob/9e151...
         | 
         | She hasn't even done any animal studies, and went to the FDA
         | seeking approval for a device...
         | 
         | These people are a bunch of clowns. The FDA has to explain to
         | them that they could do thermal testing by inserting a
         | themocouple between the device and fake skin on a testing
         | device.
        
       | 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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