Nonlinear analysis of carotid artery echographic images

Deals with the application of nonlinear analysis to the identification of spatially complex patterns in echographic images of normal and pathological carotid arteries. Complexity measures and indices are evaluated in normal and atherosclerotic plaques, related to the slow space-temporal evolution of biological patterns. In particular, we have found that the correlation dimension index lets one differentiate normal from pathological groups, allowing one to infer the complex interaction mechanism which is responsible for the plaque formation process.