0000000000294217
AUTHOR
Roberta Cucino
Mixed predictability and cross-validation to assess non-linear Granger causality in short cardiovascular variability series
A method to evaluate the direction and strength of causal interactions in bivariate cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory series is presented. The method is based on quantifying self and mixed predictability of the two series using nearest-neighbour local linear approximation. It returns two causal coupling indexes measuring the relative improvement in predictability along direct and reverse directions, and a directionality index indicating the preferential direction of interaction. The method was implemented through a cross-validation approach that allowed quantification of directionality without constraining the embedding of the series, and fully exploited the available data to maximise th…
Feasibility of cuff-free measurement of systolic and diastolic arterial blood pressure
We validated a prototype cuff-free device for noninvasive estimation of blood pressure (BP). The system assumed a linear relation between BP values and the inverse of arterial blood pulse transit time, measured as time interval between the R wave on the electrocardiograph and the onset of the peripheral pulse wave on a finger plethysmogram. Thirty-three healthy subjects were analyzed at rest and during increasing stress exercise. To estimate subject-specific linear model parameters, the system was calibrated ad personam with reference to BP measures obtained by a cuff sphygmomanometer. High correlation values (R2= 0.89 and 0.78 for systolic and diastolic BP, respectively) and differences co…
Causal transfer function analysis to describe closed loop interactions between cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory variability signals
Although the concept of transfer function is intrinsically related to an input-output relationship, the traditional and widely used estimation method merges both feedback and feedforward interactions between the two analyzed signals. This limitation may endanger the reliability of transfer function analysis in biological systems characterized by closed loop interactions. In this study, a method for estimating the transfer function between closed loop interacting signals was proposed and validated in the field of cardiovascular and cardiorespiratory variability. The two analyzed signals x and y were described by a bivariate autoregressive model, and the causal transfer function from x to y w…