Rhythmical phenomena in dermal perfusion - proved assesment strategies and new discoveries

Abstract

The phenomena of rhythm fluctuation of arterial blood pressure were discovered already in the first continuous recordings in the 18th century. However the formation of such rhythms hasn’t been explained until now. This work presents two concepts which could aid in bringing new insights into the understanding of these rhythms. One development is a multisensor system capable to acquire multiple PPG channels, ECG and additionally breathing signals to correlate local and central driven oscillations. The second new development is Photoplethysmography Imaging which allows contactless measurements of cutaneous perfusion with spatial resolution. Together with the necessary mathematical analysis tools like the Wavelet Transform a sound basis for assessment and evaluation of rhythm fluctuations in human hemodynamics is provided. Using the presented framework new, previously unreported phenomena of distributed blood volume movements in dermal perfusion could be observed.