Blood flow dynamics in the arterial and venous parts of the capillary

Abstract

Although there is currently sufficient information on various parameters of capillary blood flow, including the average values of blood velocity, there is no data on the dynamics of velocity and the mechanisms of its modulation in various parts of the capillary. The main idea of this work is to develop a tool and image data processing to study the characteristics of the capillary blood flow dynamics. In this study, using the developed method of high-speed videocapillaroscopy, the red blood cells (RBC) velocities in the arterial and venous parts of the nailfold capillaries were compared and a time-frequency analysis of the dynamics of the velocity signals with the calculation of phase coherence was performed. We indicated that the velocity in the arterial part is twice as high and that the ratio of velocities in the arterial and venous parts is stable regardless of the local velocity. This study also empirically confirms the similarity between the oscillations of blood flow in different parts of the capillary and the synchronization of the velocity phases. We believe that the determination of the absolute velocity characteristics of blood flow, together with the mechanisms of its regulation and the ratio of velocities in the arterial and venous parts, can act as a diagnostic approach.