A wearable near infrared and tonometry-based headband for cerebrovascular autoregulation monitor

Cerebrovascular autoregulation (CAR) dysfunction is associated with the occurrence of various brain diseases. So, assessing CAR and determining its intactness or impairment are important in healthcare and clinical management. In this study, a wearable near infrared and tonometry-based headband was designed to measure the changes of hemodynamics and blood pressure (BP) simultaneously, which provides a non-invasive method to monitor CAR function in real time. To induce the dynamic changes of cerebral oxygen concentration and BP, 10 healthy subjects were recruited to perform handgrip exercises. Next, the CAR indices including Pearson correlation, transfer function analysis and wavelet coherence for cerebral cortex and scalp were calculated and analyzed at time and frequency domains. The experiment results suggested that the assessment method of this paper can interpret the intactness or impairment of the CAR adjustment function, which can be potential biomarkers for early diagnosis or prognostic evaluation of brain dysfunction.