THEORETICAL ANALYSIS OF A PASSIVE ACOUSTIC BRAIN MONITORING SYSTEM

An approach based on acoustics and its theoretical analogies to electromagnetism is used in the present research to study the detection of the acoustic wave energy radiated by the thermal random motion of material particles of the brain during activation or caused by pathology. Pressure and particle velocity are calculated in analytical mathematical forms for the case of human brain monitoring, which can be implemented by a prototype passive acoustic brain monitoring system (PABMOS). A sphere to model the human head and an internal point source in order to simulate potential pressure alterations due to intracranial abnormalities or local functional activations, are used in the theoretical representation of the present approach. Finally, numerical results for arbitrary positions of the internal source, concerning the particle velocity (pressure eld distribution) at the surface of the head model which can implicitly be measured by the suitable piezoelectric sensors, are presented