Enhancing photoacoustic imaging for lung diagnostics and BCI communication: simulation of cavity structures artifact generation and evaluation of noise reduction techniques

Pandemics like COVID-19 have highlighted the potential of Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) for Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) communication and lung diagnostics. However, PAI struggles with the clear imaging of blood vessels in areas like the lungs and brain due to their cavity structures. This paper presents a simulation model to analyze the generation and propagation mechanism within phantom tissues of PAI artifacts, focusing on the evaluation of both Anisotropic diffusion filtering (ADF) and Non-local mean (NLM) filtering, which significantly reduce noise and eliminate artifacts and signify a pivotal point for selecting artifact-removal algorithms under varying conditions of light distribution. Experimental validation demonstrated the efficacy of our technique, elucidating the effect of light source uniformity on artifact-removal performance. The NLM filtering simulation and ADF experimental validation increased the peak signal-to-noise ratio by 11.33% and 18.1%, respectively. The proposed technique adds a promising dimension for BCI and is an accurate imaging solution for diagnosing lung diseases.