• Journal of Biomedical Engineering Research
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• v.16 no.4
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• pp.525-532
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• 1995

In this paper, a new try to measure nonlinear propagation characteristics of the pulse along blood vessel by using bispectral analysis is introduced, and the possibility of its application to the medical diagnosis is shown. In this method, the waveforms of pulse motion of blood vessel at two separated measuring points on the wall were detected from Doppler frequency modulation of transmitted probing ultrasonic waves. Then the auto- and crossbispectrum of detected waveforms are calculated to estimate the quadratic NTF (nonlinear transfer function) between the two measuring positions. In order to show relationships between the NTF and the nonlinear propagation characteristics, computer simulations have been performed. As the propagation distance increases, harmonic frequency components in NTF increases broadly due to the nonlinear effect in the propagation of blood pulse. In order to represent this phenomena quantitatively, we propose a new parameter, dispersion ratio of WTF. Basic experimental system was constructed by using 3.5MHz probing ultrasonic waves and the preliminary experiments were carried out on ague phantom and human body. Experimental results showed the validity of the measurement system enoughly.