Monitoring of Brain Hemodynamics Coupling in Neonates using Updated Tensor Decompositions.

In this paper we explore the use of updated tensor decompositions for the monitoring of brain hemodynamics in neonates. For this study, we used concomitant measurements of heart rate, mean arterial blood pressure, arterial oxygen saturation, EEG, and brain oxygenation - measured using near-infrared spectroscopy. These measurements were obtained from 22 neonates undergoing an INSURE procedure (INtubation, SURfactant and Extubation) and sedation using propofol. To develop the monitoring framework using tensors, we used radial basis kernel function (RBF) to construct a similarity matrix for consecutive segments of the signals. These matrices were concatenated forming a tensor. Updating canonical polyadic decomposition was used to evaluate the impact of propofol in the coupling between the different signals. Results indicate, as previously reported, a drop in the interaction between signals due to propofol administration. This shows that tensor decompositions can be useful in order to monitor the coupling between different physiological signals.

The implementation of an apnea-based perinatal stress calculator.

Early life stress in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) predisposes premature infants to adverse health outcomes. Although those patients experience frequent apneas and sleep-wake disturbances during their hospital stay, clinicians still rely on clinical scales to assess pain and stress burden. This study addresses the relationship between stress and apneic spells in NICU patients to implement an automatic stress detector. EEG, ECG and SpO2 were recorded from 40 patients for at least 3 hours and the stress burden was assessed using the Leuven Pain Scale. Different logistic regression models were designed to detect the presence or the absence of stress based on the signals reactivity to each apneic spell. The classification shows that stress can be detected with an area under the curve of 0.94 and a misclassification error of 19.23%. These results were obtained via SpO2 dips and EEG regularity. These findings suggest that stress deepens the physiological reaction to apneas, which could ultimately impact the neurological and behavioral development.