Novel estimation of the electrical bioimpedance using the local polynomial method. Application to in vivo real-time myocardium tissue impedance characterization during the cardiac cycle.

Abstract

Classical measurements of myocardium tissue electrical impedance for characterizing the morphology of myocardium cells, as well as cell membranes integrity and intra/extra cellular spaces, are based on the frequency-sweep electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) technique. In contrast to the frequency-sweep EIS approach, measuring with broadband signals, i.e., multisine excitations, enables to collect, simultaneously, multiple myocardium tissue impedance data in a short measuring time. However, reducing the measuring time makes the measurements to be prone to the influence of the transients introduced by noise and the dynamic time-varying properties of tissue. This paper presents a novel approach for the impedance-frequency-response estimation based on the local polynomial method (LPM). The fast LPM version presented rejects the leakage error's influence on the impedance frequency response when measuring electrical bioimpedance in a short time. The theory is supported by a set of validation measurements. Novel preliminary experimental results obtained from real-time in vivo healthy myocardium tissue impedance characterization within the cardiac cycle using multisine excitation are reported.