Arterial pulse wave modeling and analysis for vascular-age studies: a review from VascAgeNet

Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol. 2023 Jul 1;325(1):H1-H29. doi: 10.1152/ajpheart.00705.2022. Epub 2023 Mar 31.

Abstract

Arterial pulse waves (PWs) such as blood pressure and photoplethysmogram (PPG) signals contain a wealth of information on the cardiovascular (CV) system that can be exploited to assess vascular age and identify individuals at elevated CV risk. We review the possibilities, limitations, complementarity, and differences of reduced-order, biophysical models of arterial PW propagation, as well as theoretical and empirical methods for analyzing PW signals and extracting clinically relevant information for vascular age assessment. We provide detailed mathematical derivations of these models and theoretical methods, showing how they are related to each other. Finally, we outline directions for future research to realize the potential of modeling and analysis of PW signals for accurate assessment of vascular age in both the clinic and in daily life.

Keywords: aging; arteriosclerosis; atherosclerosis; hemodynamics; pulse wave.

Publication types

  • Review
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Arteries* / physiology
  • Humans
  • Models, Cardiovascular
  • Photoplethysmography* / methods
  • Pulse Wave Analysis

Associated data

  • figshare/10.6084/m9.figshare.21758012.v3