Presenter

Davis Bone

Document Type

Poster

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

Quantifying the mechanical forces that drive cell motility under acoustic stimulation requires linking physically defined pressure fields to measurable cell behavior. We present a computational framework coupling k-Wave acoustic simulation to Underdamped Langevin Inference (ULI) to recover radiation force fields from synthetic cell trajectories. Two geometries – a 12-well plate and a microscope slide – were simulated at 1 MHz using 1, 2, 4, and 8 transducer elements with uniform, Gaussian-apodized, 5°/10°/15° beam-steered, and randomized-amplitude configurations (132 total simulations). For each acoustic field, 48 synthetic cells were propagated via the underdamped Langevin equation for 50 seconds and submitted to ULI inference. In the well geometry, ULI recovered the coarse beam topology with Pearson r > 0.92 at 2mm smoothing, with randomized 4-transducer configurations outperforming structured equivalents; diffusion was recovered within 2–3% across all simulations. In the slide geometry, the 2mm smoothing kernel spanned two-thirds of the 3mm domain, rendering Pearson r unreliable and motivating a domain-scaled kernel for future analysis. This pipeline provides a validated framework for bespoke transducer design and a quantitative bridge to future live-cell acoustic stimulation experiments.

Faculty Mentor

Nicole Urban, Ph.D.

Academic Discipline

College of Arts & Sciences

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