J Appl Biomed 8:209-211, 2010 | DOI: 10.2478/v10136-009-0029-1

Assessing variability in neonatal blood pressure, notably in hypotension

Germaine Cornélissen^1,*, Franz Halberg¹, Elena Vasilievna Syutkina², Galina Victorovna Yatsyk², Anatoly Victorovich Masalov³, Othild Schwartzkopff¹, Dana Johnson¹

¹ University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA

² Institute of Pediatrics, Scientific Center for Children's Health, Academy of Medical Sciences, Moscow, Russia

³ Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow, Russia

New reports corroborate our prior finding that hypotension in infancy is associated with impaired neurodevelopment later in childhood. We had also found that neurological deficit is further associated with a more pronounced circadian variation in transcutaneous pO₂ (tcpO₂). New evidence in adulthood prompts the recommendation to automatically monitor vital signs for continued surveillance, relying on the methods of chronobiology for data analysis as-one-goes. This applies notably early in extra-uterine life when infants may be particularly sensitive to ischemic cerebral injury secondary to systemic hypotension. Monitoring at this sensitive lifetime stage has also provided a glimpse of unseen effects of the cosmos on the patterns of blood pressure variability, detected by chronomics.

Keywords: blood pressure; chronomics; circadian; ischemic cerebral injury; hypotension; neurological development

Received: March 10, 2010; Revised: June 14, 2010; Published: July 31, 2010  Show citation