Researchers Developing Brain-Mapping Technology

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Researchers at the University of Arizona are developing a noninvasive brain-scanning technology that could produce images far superior to those obtained with the most commonly used systems -- electroencephalography and functional magnetic resonance imaging. The technique, which incorporates sound waves to measure electrical activity in neural tissue, could improve diagnosis and treatment of many disorders, including epilepsy, Parkinson’s disease and traumatic brain injury.

Russell Witte, associate professor of medical imaging, biomedical engineering and optical sciences, is principal investigator of the research project, launched in October 2015 with a $1.15 million grant from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The three-year project also includes researchers from the UA departments of psychology, neurosurgery, neurology, emergency medicine and mathematics, and from three other universities.

“We know very little about how neurons act collectively to guide our thoughts, emotions and behaviors -- or cause seizures or mood swings,” Witte said. “Functional magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography have provided some clues. But both fMRI and EEG share a major limitation: They produce images with poor resolution. We think our new technology could overcome that limitation.”

The project is part of the U.S. government’s BRAIN Initiative, or Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies. BRAIN involves 80 public and private research institutions working together to map the human brain and build a model that reveals how individual nerve cells and complex neural circuits interact.

It’s a daunting challenge.

The human brain has been called the final frontier of scientific research for its astonishing complexity. Each of our brains contains 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, with 100 trillion connections, or synapses -- vastly higher numbers than the known number of stars. The Human Genome Project, by contrast, required mapping 20,000 genes.

Sound Science

Researchers have long known of the acoustoelectric effect, in which ultrasound energy alters a material’s physical properties like electrical conductivity. Witte is one of the first researchers to apply the phenomenon to biomedical imaging. He has developed a noninvasive imaging technique for detecting irregular heartbeats and is working with Tech Launch Arizona, the UA office that commercializes inventions stemming from University research, to create a startup for acoustoelectric cardiac imaging.

With the new study, Witte takes his research into new terrain: the brain. He and co-investigators will develop and test the noninvasive technology, called acoustoelectric brain imaging, or ABI, on mammalian brains for the first time.

ABI involves applying ultrasound waves externally to the brain, where they interact with electrical currents to produce a “signature” wave that is picked up by an electrode attached outside the head. ABI can better localize the source of electrical activity than EEG, because it overcomes the problem of interference from the skull, and it works much faster than fMRI, which measures metabolic activity.

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