The choice of viscous or viscoelastic models affects attenuation and velocity determination in simplified skull-mimicking digital phantoms.

Viscous and viscoelastic models predict different attenuation and phase velocity behavior for these idealized bone models. While both approaches predict that properties of bone microstructure have a large impact on acoustic attenuation within the skull, the viscous model indicates that bone microstructure impacts phase velocity within the skull, whereas the viscoelastic model suggests that phase velocity is less sensitive to microstructure. This study highlights the acoustic model's role in predicting transcranial propagation and the need to identify which approach most accurately reflects the physics of the human skull.