Thesis defense "Study of the charactherization methods of the blood-brain barrier disruption induced by an implantable ultrasound device"

Author: Nicolas Asquier
Time: 10:00
Place: Rockefeller Theses Room

Summary: 

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) is a natural protection of the central nervous system. However, it limits the delivery of many drugs to the brain tissues. It can be temporarily disrupted by ultrasound exposure combined with intravenous injection of microbubbles. In this manuscript, BBB disruption with an implantable unfocused ultrasound device is studied.
An automatic method for quantifying the volume of BBB disruption using MR images from a phase 1/2a clinical study in patients with reccurent glioblastoma was assessed and validated. A correlation between the probability of disruption and the local acoustic pressure was found.
Microbubbles cavitation activity was studied in vitro to better understand its effect on BBB disruption. The uncertainty on the amplitudes of cavitation signals recorded with a passive single-element detector (PCD) through the skull was quantified. A position-based correction of the PCD signal was assessed and validated.
The effect of the volume of a cavitation cloud in the unfocused ultrasound field on the signal amplitude recorded by the PCD during the clinical treatment was discussed. Two methods for localizing and discriminating cavitation sources in a transcranial context were evaluated by simulations and in vitro.