Convergent cross mapping: a promising technique for cerebral autoregulation estimation

Background: Cerebral autoregulation (CA) is the physiological mechanism that keeps the cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) relatively constant despite changes in arterial blood pressure (ABP). Currently, transfer function analysis (TFA) is widely used to assess CA non-invasively. TFA is based on the assumption that CA is a linear process, however, in reality CA is a non-linear process. This study explores the usability of convergent cross mapping (CCM) as a non-linear analysis technique to assess CA.