Cerebral hemodynamics in preterm infants during positional intervention measured with diffuse correlation spectroscopy and transcranial Doppler ultrasound

Four very low birth weight, very premature infants were monitored during a 12 degrees postural elevation using diffuse correlation spectroscopy (DCS) to measure microvascular cerebral blood flow (CBF) and transcranial Doppler ultrasound (TCD) to measure macrovascular blood flow velocity in the middle cerebral artery. DCS data correlated significantly with peak systolic, end diastolic, and mean velocities measured by TCD (p(A) = 0.036, 0.036, 0.047). Moreover, population averaged TCD and DCS data yielded no significant hemodynamic response to this postural change (p > 0.05). We thus demonstrate feasibility of DCS in this population, we show correlation between absolute measures of blood flow from DCS and blood flow velocity from TCD, and we do not detect significant changes in CBF associated with a small postural change (12 degrees) in these patients.