Brain palpation from physiological vibrations using MRI

Significance It is commonly supposed that noise obscures but does not contain useful information. However, in wave physics and especially, seismology, scientists developed some tools known as “noise correlation” to extract useful information and construct images from the random vibrations of a medium. Living tissues are full of unexploited vibrations as well. In this manuscript, we show that noise correlation techniques in the brain using MRI can conduct to a tomography related to the stiffness that physicians estimate during a palpation examination. This MRI brain seismology in rupture with other techniques is experimentally shown in vitro and in vivo. We present a magnetic resonance elastography approach for tissue characterization that is inspired by seismic noise correlation and time reversal. The idea consists of extracting the elasticity from the natural shear waves in living tissues that are caused by cardiac motion, blood pulsatility, and any muscle activity. In contrast to other magnetic resonance elastography techniques, this noise-based approach is, thus, passive and broadband and does not need any synchronization with sources. The experimental demonstration is conducted in a calibrated phantom and in vivo in the brain of two healthy volunteers. Potential applications of this “brain palpation” approach for characterizing brain anomalies and diseases are foreseen.