Time-difference imaging of magnetic induction tomography in a three-layer brain physical phantom

Magnetic induction tomography (MIT) is a contactless and noninvasive technique to reconstruct the conductivity distribution in a human cross-section. In this paper, we want to study the feasibility of imaging the low-contrast perturbation and small volume object in human brains. We construct a three-layer brain physical phantom which mimics the real conductivity distribution of brains by introducing an artificial skull layer. Using our MIT data acquisition system on this phantom and differential algorithm, we have obtained a series of reconstructed images of conductivity perturbation objects. All of the conductivity perturbation objects in the brain phantom can be clearly distinguished in the reconstructed images. The minimum detectable conductivity difference between the object and the background is 0.03 S m−1 (12.5%). The minimum detectable inner volume of the objects is 3.4 cm3. The three-layer brain physical phantom is able to simulate the conductivity distribution of the main structures of a human brain. The images of the low-contrast perturbation and small volume object show the prospect of MIT in the future.