Non-invasive spinal vibration testing using ultrafast ultrasound imaging: A new way to measure spine function

The extremely high frame-rate of ultrafast ultrasound imaging has enabled the possibility to image extremely fast events on the order of thousands of frames/sec. With the success of ultrafast imaging across a wide variety of disciplines, we now explore the ability of ultrafast imaging to capture spinal vibrations for non-invasive spinal testing in living subjects. Previously, we have shown that accelerometer-based vibration testing in cadaveric models can reveal the presence, location and magnitude of spinal pathology. However, this process remains an invasive procedure as current non-invasive sensors are inadequate. In this experiment, we investigate the ability of non-invasive ultrafast ultrasound to quantify in-vivo vertebral vibration response across a broad range of frequencies (10-100 Hz) in an anesthetized pig model.