Looking at the animations, it’s not hard to imagine this being a fast, low cost test for strokes that can be deployed basically anywhere in the world. Life saving technology.
You can already do this with EEGs for low-ish cost
Ultrasound imaging of the brain
71–80 of 133 posts
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#72Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they can get same-day MRIs for $50 I’d like to see a breakdown on how they do that. Staffing alone is a multiple of that.
From what I know, seems like a mix of medical price fixing by the gov't, adoption of lower cost hardware, and universal healthcare. There's apparently less bureaucracy, perhaps because there is no need for negotiation at every step of the process?
There are big costs. The hardware, the facility (RF cage and chillers), power, water, staff, RIS/PACS etc etc.
I can’t see how you can do it for $50. Does the ‘universal healthcare’ bit mean that the government is paying most the bill and it’s $50 out of pocket?
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#73This is complete nonsense. Ultrasound can’t effectively penetrate the skull. The entire thing (and Midjourney’s) is vibed-up nonsense.
The only reason this even exists as a brainfart and hasn’t been immediately laughed out of VC funding is because other imaging modalities require either ionising radiation (illegal to produce without source licences) or an enormous magnet (would be wildly unsafe in the hands of what appear to be circus clowns).
Geoffrey Hinton was hilariously wrong 10 years ago about replacing radiologists, and this is just embarrassing. Maybe try fixing US healthcare funding instead if you want cheaper scans.
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they can get same-day MRIs for $50 I’d like to see a breakdown on how they do that. Staffing alone is a multiple of that.
Romania: for a head MRI on demand - not more than a few days and less than 400 Euros.
That’s more believable than $50, and isn’t out of whack with what’s achievable where I am (New Zealand).
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
MRIs are fundamentally expensive. Yes we can bring the price down a bit, and we can set more money aside for them, but they’ll always be limited by their price. Even if this technique is much worse (I can certainly believe it is) the price might allow uses that would never be practical with MRI even with the best financial support. For example, ultrasound might be viable for use in GPs or small medical facilities whi…
Why would they remain fundamentally expensive? It is a fixed machine (so eventually you recoup the investment) and running consumes nothing other than electricity and a paper gown. MRIs cost under $200 in Japan.
> $200
This makes more sense than the comment elsewhere here that says $50.
My guess: It would be a basic scan with minimal sequences and low quality at that price.
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#76Cool work and proof of concept, and very excited to see where this goes. However, I do think there is enough exaggeration and missing information here that it warrants some critical appraisal. What's really missing is a comparison and validation with any existing medical imaging tech. Whole brain, contrast-free neurovascular imaging is essentially solved with MRI, why not run a scan and compare? Ultrasound is of cour…
As the article says, their ultrasound machine costs about as much as a smartphone. It’s about $4000. An MRI machine costs roughly 1000x as much.
> An MRI machine costs roughly 1000x as much.
The running costs are also eye watering.
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#77Even low-dose ultrasound (what they use on pregnant woman) results in ultrastructural changes in brains [0], specifically at the nodes of Ranvier (the gaps between myelin along axons). See also [1] for a review.
[0] Ellisman MH, Palmer DE, André MP (1987), "Diagnostic levels of ultrasound may disrupt myelination," Experimental Neurology 98:78–92 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/3308504/
[1] Quarato, C.M.I., Lacedonia, D., Salvemini, M., Tuccari, G., Mastrodonato, G., Villani, R., Fiore, L.A., Scioscia, G., Mirijello, A., Saponara, A. and Sperandeo, M., 2023. A review on biological effects of ultrasounds: key messages for clinicians. Diagnostics, 13(5), p.855. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10001275/
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
From what I know, seems like a mix of medical price fixing by the gov't, adoption of lower cost hardware, and universal healthcare. There's apparently less bureaucracy, perhaps because there is no need for negotiation at every step of the process?
There are big costs. The hardware, the facility (RF cage and chillers), power, water, staff, RIS/PACS etc etc. I can’t see how you can do it for $50. Does the ‘universal healthcare’ bit mean that the government is paying most the bill and it’s $50 out of pocket?
Yes, $50 was a rough out-of-pocket estimate, the amortized cost per scan for operation alone is probably on the order of hundreds of dollars per scan, assuming high utilization.
One funny thing about MRIs is the magnet is always on, so there could be some clever ways to reduce costs running them after hours.
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#79This is complete nonsense. Ultrasound can’t effectively penetrate the skull. The entire thing (and Midjourney’s) is vibed-up nonsense. The only reason this even exists as a brainfart and hasn’t been immediately laughed out of VC funding is because other imaging modalities require either ionising radiation (illegal to produce without source licences) or an enormous magnet (would be wildly unsafe in the hands of what a…
Ultrasound can penetrate the skull, esp if through a thin part of the skull (like the temporal bone, which going from the graphic on the website is exactly where they are targeting these waves) and with targeted frequencies.
You are misinformed.
Re: Ultrasound imaging of the brain
#80I thought the whole "we can guess what you're thinking from an MRI" thing was BS, along the lines: take a small set of photos, image people's brains as they are looking at these pictures, to map to some low-dimensional vector of "brain activity". Then show them some of these (in sample!) pictures, measure the vector of activity and predict back what they were looking at. Happy to be corrected. But if that's right the…
How is that BS? If the technique works, you can grow your sample of imaged brains and viewed images ad infinitum, and then why wouldn't I be able to tell what random thing any random person is looking at?