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Neck-focused Remote Photoplethysmography (rPPG): A comparative study using clinical data and the PyVHR framework

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Remote Photoplethysmography (rPPG) promises to turn digital cameras into medical devices with the measurement of heart rates, oxygen saturation and the diagnosis arrhythmias already demonstrated. The face-centric nature of current rPPG techniques limits open-datasets from including subjects with clinically-relevant cardiorespiratory conditions without sharing private medical information. The neck, with few identifiable characteristics, is well suited to overcoming this limitation, as it serves as a region of interest (ROI) for pulse detection during jugular venous examination, a common clinical technique. rPPG techniques hinge on the ability to accurately measure heart rates. This paper aims to motivate the development of neck-based rPPG technology by first showing that comparable heart-rate measurement accuracy can be achieved on the neck using rPPG algorithms developed for the face, and then investigating how subject posture affects measurement accuracy. We do this by using a version of the PyVHR framework adapted to process both necks and faces and using 20 different rPPG approaches. We introduce a novel metric, Heart-Rate Within Tolerance (HRWT) as a more intuitive metric for understanding the overall reliability of an rPPG approach. We found comparable heart rate measurement accuracy on a neck-centric dataset, compared with 5 face-centric datasets, with differences in mean absolute percentage error of 1.79 ± 4.93% BPM between the neck and faces. Neck videos were also found to have an improved HRWT, outperforming facial videos by an average of 15%. For neck-centric videos, subject posture was found to decrease performance as the subject moved from a supine, to seated position.

Source: Computers in Biology and Medicine

DOI: 10.1016/j.compbiomed.2025.110956

Authors: Coen Arrow, Max Ward, Jason Eshraghian, Girish Dwivedi

Institutions: The University of Western Australia, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, University of California, Santa Cruz, Fiona Stanley Hospital

Language: English

Topic: Non-Invasive Vital Sign Monitoring

Subfield: Biomedical Engineering

Field: Engineering

Domain: Physical Sciences

SDG: Good health and well-being

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,080