Time-Series Autoregressive Models for Point and Interval Forecasting of Raw and Derived Commercial Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Measures: An Exploratory Cranial Trauma and Healthy Control Analysis

Cerebral near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) systems have been demonstrated to continuously measure aspects of oxygen delivery and cerebrovascular reactivity. However, it remains unknown whether the prediction of these cerebral physiologic signals into the future is feasible. Leveraging existing archived data sources, four point and interval-forecasting methods using autoregressive integrative moving average (ARIMA) models were evaluated to assess their ability to predict NIRS cerebral physiologic signals. NIRS-based regional cerebral oxygen saturation (rSO₂) and cerebral oximetry index signals were derived in three temporal resolutions (10 s, 1 min, and 5 min). Anchored- and sliding-window forecasting, with varying model memory, using point and interval approaches were used to forecast signals using fitted optimal ARIMA models. The absolute difference in the forecasted and measured data was evaluated with median absolute deviation, along with root mean squared error analysis. Further, Pearson correlation and Bland-Altman statistical analyses were performed. Data from 102 healthy controls, 27 spinal surgery patients, and 101 traumatic brain injury patients were retrospectively analyzed. All ARIMA-based point and interval prediction models demonstrated small residuals, while correlation and agreement varied based on model memory. The ARIMA-based sliding-window approach performed superior to the anchored approach due to data partitioning and model memory. ARIMA-based sliding-window forecasting using point and interval approaches can forecast rSO₂ and the cerebral oximetry index with reasonably small residuals across all populations. Correlation and agreement between the predicted versus actual values varies substantially based on data-partitioning methods and model memory. Further work is required to assess the ability to forecast high-frequency NIRS signals using ARIMA and ARIMA-variant models in healthy and cranial trauma populations.