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Studying the Oscillatory Components of Human Skin Microcirculation

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Measuring the Skin

Abstract

Laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) is used to study skin microcirculation, providing a nonstationary signal which can be simplified with tools such as the wavelet transform (WT), detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA), and multiscale entropy analysis (MSE). WT splits the LDF signal into its main frequency components: heart, respiration, myogenic, sympathetic, and metabolic; DFA determines the α coefficient, which can translate correlations, and MSE quantifies the complexity of the signal over multiple time scales. We characterized the LDF signal obtained during a lower limb occlusion maneuver performed on young adults. Results revealed that the LDF signal is predominantly of sympathetic and metabolic origin, showing different correlation and entropy profiles during the different phases of the protocol. Occlusion significantly changed the components’ amplitude ratios, entropy values, and α exponents. The heart and respiration components showed 1/f noise-like behavior, and the myogenic, sympathetic, and metabolic components showed Brownian noise-like behavior. The combined use of these tools helps to better understand the LDF signal, with an aim to improve its clinical and diagnostic utility.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. CBIOS – Research Center for Biosciences and Health Technologies, Universidade Lusófona, Campo Grande 376, 1749-024, Lisboa, Portugal

    Henrique Silva & L. Monteiro Rodrigues

  2. Pharmacol. Sc Depart, Universidade de Lisboa, School of Pharmacy, Lisboa, Portugal

    Henrique Silva & L. Monteiro Rodrigues

  3. Faculty of Sciences, Institute of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering, Universidade de Lisboa, Lisboa, Portugal

    Hugo Ferreira

Authors
  1. Henrique Silva
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  2. Hugo Ferreira
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  3. L. Monteiro Rodrigues
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to L. Monteiro Rodrigues .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Medecine Vasculaire Lab. Ingénierie et de Biologie Cutanées, CHU Besancon Service Dermatologie et, Besancon, France

    Philippe Humbert

  2. San Francisco, California, USA

    Howard Maibach

  3. Department of Dermatology, Saint Jacques University Hospital, Besançon, France

    Ferial Fanian

  4. Univ. Besançon Dépt. Dermatologie, Besançon, France

    Pierre Agache

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Silva, H., Ferreira, H., Rodrigues, L.M. (2015). Studying the Oscillatory Components of Human Skin Microcirculation. In: Humbert, P., Maibach, H., Fanian, F., Agache, P. (eds) Measuring the Skin. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26594-0_62-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26594-0_62-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-26594-0

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