Estimating intracranial pressure using pulsatile cerebral blood flow measured with diffuse correlation spectroscopy

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Neuroscience
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Intracranial pressure (ICP) monitoring is critical for managing severe head injuries.
• Current ICP measurement methods are invasive, posing risks like infection and complications.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a non-invasive method for quantifying ICP.
• To utilize cerebral blood flow (CBF) measurements for ICP estimation.

Main Methods:

• Developed a non-invasive technique using diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) to measure CBF.
• Analyzed morphological changes in the CBF cardiac pulsation waveform related to ICP variations.
• Trained a randomized regression forest model to estimate ICP based on pulse waveform features.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated that the DCS-based method can explain over 90% of the variance in invasively measured ICP.
• Successfully validated the non-invasive ICP estimation in five non-human primates.

Conclusions:

• Non-invasive ICP estimation using DCS and pulse waveform analysis is feasible and accurate.
• This novel approach offers a promising, safer alternative to invasive ICP monitoring for severe head injury.
• Further research may lead to clinical applications for improved patient outcomes.