Validation of mSOUND using a fully heterogeneous skull model

Transcranial ultrasound has found an increasing number of applications in recent years, including the treatment of neurological conditions through thermal ablation and neuromodulation. Ensuring the success and safety of such treatments necessitates precise numerical simulations of transcranial ultrasound, a pivotal aspect of treatment planning involving phase correction. Addressing this demand, an open-source wave solver named mSOUND (https://m-sound.github.io/mSOUND/home) was developed specifically for modeling focused ultrasound in heterogeneous media. A recent intercomparison study (J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 152, 1003–1019, 2022) scrutinized mSOUND alongside other wave solvers like k-Wave, demonstrating its accuracy in modeling wave propagation through a homogeneous skull. This study extends the assessment to evaluate mSOUND's accuracy in modeling wave propagation through a fully heterogeneous skull, utilizing CT images of an ex vivo human skull. The obtained results are systematically compared with those from k-Wave, revealing a high level of agreement.