Arterial pressure pulse wave separation analysis using a multi-Gaussian decomposition model

Methods for separating the forward-backward components from blood pulse waves rely on simultaneously measured pressure and flow velocity from a target artery site. Modelling approaches for flow velocity simplify the wave separation analysis (WSA), providing a methodological and instrumentational advantage over the former; however, current methods are limited to the aortic site. In this work, a multi-Gaussian decomposition (MGD) modelled WSA (MGD ) is developed for a non-aortic site such as the carotid artery. While the model is an adaptation of the existing wave separation theory, it does not rely on the information of measured or modelled flow velocity. The proposed model decomposes the arterial pressure waveform using weighted and shifted multi-Gaussians, which are then uniquely combined to yield the forward ( ( )) and backward ( ( )) pressure wave. A study using the database of healthy (virtual) subjects was used to evaluate the performance of MGD at the carotid artery and was compared against reference flow-based WSA methods. The MGD modelled pressure waveform yielded a root-mean-square error (RMSE)