(Nitzan & Engelberg, 2009), several other
physiological parameters can be extracted, including
heart rate (Temko, 2017), heart rate variability (Lin
et al., 2014), as well as respiratory rate (Daimiwa et
al., 2014). From this information, other parameters,
including blood pressure (Kurylyak et al., 2013), can
be inferred. However, the analysis of PPG signals
can be challenging, due to characteristics of
biological signals in general. For example, non-
stationarity, which is the time dependence of
statistical properties such as standard deviation and
mean in the signal, necessitates careful selection of
signal processing technique to accurately quantify
signal properties (Usui & Toda, 1991).
Remote PPG (rPPG) is an adaptation of
transmission mode PPG in which a camera is used to
capture the backscattered light from the tissue.The
primary advantage of remote PPG over contact PPG
lies in its contactless nature, rendering it suitable for
applications with sensitive tissue (such as wounds,
burns, neurological conditions, etc.) in addition to
addressing other limitations of contact PPG. For
instance, the contactless property means that it does
not rely on robust skin-to-sensor contact, which is
necessary for a strong PPG signal acquired using the
contact method. Maintaining high fidelity skin to
sensor contact is also made more difficult by the
sensor being mechanically fixed to the skin,
requiring external pressure (e.g., spring-loaded
finger clip) that can have a significant effect on PPG
signal quality and reproducibility. Further, contact
PPG has high sensitivity to motion artifacts, and
therefore requires the patient to stay very still.
In the most typical acquisition scenario, rPPG is
used to capture a single PPG signal over a whole
tissue area, such as the palm (Zheng et al., 2008) or
face (Zheng et al., 2009). However, the utility of
rPPG goes beyond tissue oxygenation. For example,
several PPG devices placed on the skin can be used
to extract pulse wave velocity (PWV), which
demonstrates a significant clinical value (e.g.
baPWV (Katakami et al., 2014)).
With a large enough field of view, the same data
can be collected using video rPPG, which registers
rPPG signals for segments of the field of view (in
contrast to a single signal from the entire field of
view). Several recently proposed imaging modalities
take advantage of the multi-pixel nature of rPPG and
aim to extract additional physiological information
from spatially resolved rPPG signals. For example,
(Saiko et al., 2021) used a high frame rate camera to
analyze pulse wave velocity in peripheral blood
vessels. Similarly, (Burton et al., 2021) used
spatially
resolved PPG signal to extract information
about tissue perfusion.
However, as we go beyond typical PPG utility,
complexity rises. The hemodynamics of the
microcirculation are extremely complex, with
multiple autoregulatory systems at play.
The predominant signal source in the PPG is the
cardiac pulsation caused by the ejection of blood
from the left ventricle during cardiac systole, which
affects the origins previously described. Heart rate
for normal subjects at rest varies from 60-100 beats
per minute (bpm) (John Hopkins Medicine, 2021).
Conservatively extending the lower bound to 50pm
to consider lower resting heart rates that can occur in
certain people, such as athletes (Doyen et al., 2019),
then the corresponding frequency range is 0.83-
1.67Hz. As previously mentioned, respiration can
also be extracted from PPG signals. The normal
respiration rate for a healthy subject is 12 to 20
breaths per minute (Cleveland Clinic, 2021),
corresponding to a frequency range of 0.20Hz-
0.33Hz.
The amplitude of PPG signals is known to be
low, which is attributed to a significant depth from
the originating tissue to the surface of the skin,
which photons must travel to register on the detector
(Moço et al., 2018). In particular, (Moço et al.,
2018) simulated photon propagation in a multi-
layered turbid media, configured to represent the
optical properties of six layers of skin in the palm or
finger pad, and found that the depth origin of the
PPG signal was from approximately 1.5-2mm under
the surface of the skin. This low amplitude signal
further contains oscillations in 0.01-0.02Hz, 0.02-
0.06Hz, 0.06-0.15Hz ranges corresponding to
endothelial related metabolic, neurogenic, and
myogenic activities, respectively (Li, 2006).
Finally, a lesser discussed signal which may be
present in the PPG are Mayer waves, which are
oscillations in blood pressure that typically occur at
a frequency of 0.1Hz (Julien, 2006). The mechanism
for Mayer waves is subject to active debate, but
recent findings advocate that the oscillations are
produced by a sympathetic baroreceptor response to
hemodynamic disturbances (Julien, 2006). Further,
Mayer waves have been demonstrated to have
clinical utility in prediction of hypertension. In a
longitudinal study, Mayer waves were extracted
from electrocardiograms (ECG) and their
characteristic frequency quantified. Five years after
ECG acquisition, investigators followed up with
subjects and observed that lower frequency Mayer
waves corresponded to an increased risk of primary
hypertension (Takalo et al., 1999). A related
mechanism for blood pressure regulation is the
myogenic vascular response (MVR), which is a non-