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Updated: Dec 7, 2025

Assessing Cerebral Autoregulation via Oscillatory Lower Body Negative Pressure and Projection Pursuit Regression
Published on: December 10, 2014
Brain Tissue Pulsation in Healthy Volunteers
Poppy Turner1, Caroline Banahan2, Meshal Alharbi3
1Department of Cardiovascular Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK; Department of Engineering, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK.
Abstract:
It is well known that the brain pulses with each cardiac cycle, but interest in measuring cardiac-induced brain tissue pulsations (BTPs) is relatively recent. This study was aimed at generating BTP reference data from healthy patients for future clinical comparisons and modelling. BTPs were measured through the forehead and temporal positions as a function of age, sex, heart rate, mean arterial pressure and pulse pressure. A multivariate regression model was developed based on transcranial tissue Doppler BTP measurements from 107 healthy adults (56 male) aged from 20-81 y. A subset of 5 participants (aged 20-49 y) underwent a brain magnetic resonance imaging scan to relate the position of the ultrasound beam to anatomy. BTP amplitudes were found to vary widely between patients (from ∼4 to ∼150 µm) and were strongly associated with pulse pressure. Comparison with magnetic resonance images confirmed regional variations in BTP with depth and probe position.
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