Nonlinear analysis of carotid artery echographic images

This study deals with application of nonlinear analysis to the identification of spatial complex patterns in echographic images of normal and pathological carotid arteries. Complexity measures indices in normal and atherosclerotic plaques, related to slow space-temporal evolution of biological patterns, are evaluated. In particular, we found that the correlation dimension index lets to differentiate normal from pathological groups, allowing to infer on complex interaction mechanism responsible of plaque formation process.