{
  "id": 3125923,
  "title": "Temple PPG Morphology Demonstrates a Stronger Cardiovascular Age Signal Than Wrist Sites",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/08/24/temple-ppg-morphology-demonstrates-a-stronger-cardiovascular-age",
  "topic": "science",
  "section": "Science",
  "published": "2026-08-24T00:00:00.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "bioRxiv",
    "slug": "biorxiv",
    "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.19.745616v1?rss=1"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The study examined the features of PPG morphology, which reflect age-related cardiac and vascular changes. Most wearable devices acquire PPG signals from distal sites like the wrist and finger. However, the superficial temporal artery (STA), located at the temple region, lies along a shorter arterial path from the aortic root than the radial circulation, potentially carrying hemodynamic and aging information with less distance-dependent attenuation. The researchers hypothesized that the PPG morphology at the temple region would demonstrate stronger and more numerous age correlates compared to the wrist. To test this hypothesis, they extracted 89 pulse-morphology features from both a temple-worn device and a publicly available Microsoft Aurora-BP wrist-worn PPG dataset. The results showed that the temple region yielded 14 robust age correlates, while the wrist region only exhibited 3. These 14 temple region correlates spanned various morphological categories and exhibited a larger association with age than those found at the wrist. This finding supports the hypothesis that the temple region could be a more robust PPG measurement site for extracting age-related cardiovascular information, suggesting a need for further investigation into temple-based cardiovascular sensing.",
  "summary": "The features of the PPG (photoplethysmography) morphology are known to reflect age-related cardiac and vascular changes. In most contemporary wearables, PPG signals are acquired from distal sites such as the wrist and finger. The superficial temporal artery (STA), accessible at the temple region, is reached via a shorter arterial path from the aortic root than the radial circulation, and may…",
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}