Effect of Skull Inhomogeneities on Localization Accuracy in Brain Electrical Impedance Tomography

The structural similarity of the head model affects the accuracy of solutions to electrical impedance tomography (EIT) forward problem. The conductivity of skull is one of the most sensitive head model parameters. Generally, the skull is considered as a homogeneous whole, while in fact it is inhomogeneous. In this paper EIT images are reconstructed with different head models to detect and localize the conductivity changes in brain. The simulation results show that localization accuracy of the conductivity changes in brain has been improved when skull inhomogeneities are taken into account. Incorporation of skull inhomogeneities into image reconstruction is an effective way to improve image quality of brain EIT.