Title: Evaluation of endothelial response to reactive hyperaemia in peripheral arteries using a physiological model

Authors: Mohammad Habib Parsafar; Edmond Zahedi; Bijan Vosoughi Vahdat

Addresses: Department of Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran ' Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Energy, British Columbia Institute of Technology, Burnaby, Canada ' Department of Electrical Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran

Abstract: Non-invasive measurement of flow-mediated dilation (FMD) in the brachial artery for assessing endothelial function is costly and operator-dependent, limiting its application to research cases. In this paper, an approach based on a physiological model between normalized central blood pressure and finger photoplethysmogram is presented. Baseline model parameters are estimated using a genetic algorithm in 30 subjects consisting of ten normal blood pressure (BP), ten high-BP and ten elderly volunteers. Beat-to-beat fitness values after reactive hyperaemia are calculated using baseline (before cuff occlusion) data. Results show that stimulus-induced changes are fairly described with a first order dynamic. The time constant of this first order system is significantly larger for normal BP compared to high BP (p-value = 0.004) and elderly subjects (p-value = 0.01). Our findings hint to the potential of the proposed physiological, model-based approach for evaluating cardiovascular health using FMD.

Keywords: flow-mediated dilation; FMD; photoplethysmography; endothelial function; cardiovascular modelling; viscoelasticity; tube-load model.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBET.2020.108989

International Journal of Biomedical Engineering and Technology, 2020 Vol.33 No.4, pp.305 - 324

Received: 03 Mar 2017
Accepted: 30 Jun 2017
Published online: 14 Aug 2020 *

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