A histotripsy therapy system configured for the treatment of tissue is provided, which may include any number of features. Provided herein are systems and methods that provide efficacious non-invasive and minimally invasive therapeutic, diagnostic and research procedures. In particular, provided herein are optimized systems and methods that provide targeted, efficacious histotripsy in a variety of different regions and under a variety of different conditions without causing undesired tissue damage to intervening/non-target tissues or structures.

An ultrasound therapy device for generating ultrasound therapy. The ultrasound therapy device includes a wearable structure, ultrasound transducer units, a tightening mechanism, a memory, and a processor. The wearable structure is securable to a user to transmit the ultrasound to a target therapy area of a user including at least one of a kidney region, a lung region, and a lower limb of the user. The ultrasound transducer units are attachable and repositionable in the wearable structure to generate and deliver the ultrasound to the target region. The ultrasound transducer units are arranged in an array. The array of ultrasound transducer units is mechanically moved within the wearable structure and is in contact with a material to facilitate penetration of ultrasound into the user's body.

The system and process of therapeutic and effective cavitation by using ultrasound to collapse gas vesicles as well as cavitate the bubbles produced from the collapsed gas vesicles. Therapeutic effect includes, but is not limited to lysing cells by cavitation. The cells expressing the gas vesicles can optionally be used as delivery cells to preform tasks such as transporting the gas vesicles into deep tissue areas, releasing compounds at the cavitation site, and more. The gas vesicles can optionally be modified to facilitate getting the bubbles near the cavitation targets by functionalizing the gas vesicles.

Apparatus and methods for deactivating bronchial nerves extending along a bronchial branch of a mammalian subject to treat asthma and related conditions. An ultrasonic transducer (11) is inserted into the bronchus as, for example, by advancing the distal end of a catheter (10) bearing the transducer into the bronchial section to be treated. The ultrasonic transducer emits focused ultrasound so as to heat tissues throughout circular impact volume (13) as, for example, at least about 1 cm.sup.3 encompassing the bronchus to a temperature sufficient to inactivate nerve conduction but insufficient to cause rapid ablation or necrosis of the tissues. The treatment can be performed without locating or focusing on individual bronchial nerves.

An ultrasonic intracranial sonothrombolysis pressure amplitude is pre-quantified by using an ultrasound-scanner control unit (110) having an increasing and/or decreasing mode and designed for: with respect to a current mode, interrogating a blockage site iteratively so as to progressively and respectively increase or decrease a pressure amplitude of ultrasound being emitted to the site at which bubbles (144) for oscillating that is caused by the emitted ultrasound are present; iteration to iteration, deriving, from echoes of the emitted ultrasound, a magnitude of an energy of a signal; and automatically identifying, for the quantifying, an iteration that, in comparison with a just-previous iteration, fails to increase the magnitude. The interrogating may span a region that contains or goes through: the obstruction; another part of the blood vessel; and bubble circulation within a neighboring vessel and a neighboring capillary (136). The deriving can be based on an ultraharmonic signal, with band-pass filtering being utilized to extract the ultraharmonic signal from returning signals differenced to remove stationary content.

A universal ultrasound device having an ultrasound probe includes a semiconductor die; a plurality of ultrasonic transducers integrated on the semiconductor die, the plurality of ultrasonic transducers configured to operate a first mode associated with a first frequency range and a second mode associated with a second frequency range, wherein the first frequency range is at least partially non-overlapping with the second frequency range; and control circuitry configured to: control the plurality of ultrasonic transducers to generate and/or detect ultrasound signals having frequencies in the first frequency range, in response to receiving an indication to operate the ultrasound probe in the first mode; and control the plurality of ultrasonic transducers to generate and/or detect ultrasound signals having frequencies in the second frequency range, in response to receiving an indication to operate the ultrasound probe in the second mode.

In at least some examples, a method of treating an eye, includes (i) imaging a patient's vitreous using a probe, (ii) defining a window on a desired region of the vitreous, (iii) administering ultrasonic energy treatment to the desired region within the window, (iv) continually monitoring the treatment via the probe, (v) adjusting a characteristic of the ultrasonic energy treatment based on the monitoring, (vi) re-imaging the desired region of the vitreous after the treatment is administered, and (vii) evaluating or observing the desired region to determine whether a target percentage of a vitreous opacity has been resolved.

Systems and methods for ablating tissue include an ablation device having an energy source and a sensor. The energy source provides a beam of energy directable to target tissue, and the sensor senses energy reflected back from the target tissue. The sensor collects various information from the target tissue in order to facilitate adjustment of ablation operating parameters, such as changing power or position of the energy beam. Gap distance between the energy source and target tissue, energy beam incident angle, tissue motion, tissue type, lesion depth, etc. are examples of some of the information that may be collected during the ablation process and used to help control ablation of the tissue.

A passive compression wave imaging system comprises an array of sensor elements arranged in a sparse array and a processor arranged to: store a plurality of samples of the output from each of the sensor elements over a sample period; derive from the stored samples a value for each of a set of image pixels; wherein for each of the image pixels the processing means is arranged to: define a plurality of different sets of weights for the elements of the sparse array; calculate a component of a pixel value from each of the sets of weights and the stored samples; and sum the components of the pixel value to produce a final pixel value.

Systems and methods are disclosed related to using acoustic waves to detect neural activity in a brain and/or localize the neural activity in the brain. Sensors positioned outside of a skull encasing the brain can detect acoustic waves associated with the neural activity in the brain. From output signals of the sensors, a particular type of neural activity (e.g., a seizure) can be detected. A location of the neural activity can be determined based on outputs of the sensors. In some embodiments, the ultrasound energy can be applied to the location of the neural activity in response to detecting the neural activity.