PWDB (Pulse Wave Database)

Overview

This database of simulated arterial pulse waves is designed to be representative of a sample of pulse waves measured from healthy adults. It contains pulse waves for 4,374 virtual subjects, aged from 25-75 years old (in 10 year increments). The database contains a baseline set of pulse waves for each of the six age groups, created using cardiovascular properties (such as heart rate and arterial stiffness) which are representative of healthy subjects at each age group. It also contains 728 further virtual subjects at each age group, in which each of the cardiovascular properties are varied within normal ranges. This allows for extensive in silico analyses of haemodynamics and the performance of pulse wave analysis algorithms.

Data Description

The database contains the following pulse waves, sampled at 500 Hz:

• arterial flow velocity (U),
• luminal area (A),
• pressure (P), and
• photoplethysmogram (PPG).

These pulse waves are provided at a range of measurement sites, including:

• aorta (ascending and descending)
• carotid artery
• brachial artery
• radial artery
• finger
• femoral artery

The database also contains numerous reference variables, mostly relating to cardiovascular properties, such as:

• heart rate
• cardiac output
• blood pressure
• pulse wave velocity
• age

The data are available in three formats: Matlab, CSV and WaveForm Database (WFDB) format. Further details of the formatting and contents of each file are available here.

Accompanying Publication

The database is described in the following publication:

Charlton P.H., Mariscal Harana, J., Vennin, S., Li, Y., Chowienczyk, P. & Alastruey, J., “Modelling arterial pulse waves in healthy ageing: a database for in silico evaluation of haemodynamics and pulse wave indices,” AJP Hear. Circ. Physiol., 317(5), pp.H1062-H1085, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpheart.00218.2019

Please cite this publication when using the database.

Further Information

Further information on the Pulse Wave Database project can be found at the project homepage. In particular, an accompanying Wiki provides:

• An introduction to the dataset here
• The methods used to create and analyse the dataset here
• An explanation of each of the variables in the dataset here
• Case studies of analyses conducted on the dataset in Matlab here