Exploring metrics for the characterization of the cerebral autoregulation during head-up tilt and propofol general anesthesia

Techniques grounded on the simultaneous utilization of Tiecks' second order differential equations and spontaneous variability of mean arterial pressure (MAP) and mean cerebral blood flow velocity (MCBFV), recorded from middle cerebral arteries through a transcranial Doppler device, provide a characterization of cerebral autoregulation (CA) via the autoregulation index (ARI). These methods exploit two metrics for comparing the measured MCBFV series with the version predicted by Tiecks' model: normalized mean square prediction error (NMSPE) and normalized correlation rho. The aim of this study is to assess the two metrics for ARI computation in 13 healthy subjects (age: 27 & PLUSMN; 8 yr…