A method of measuring local and propagating pulsatile behavior of a vasculature system provides a way to non-invasively measure vascular dynamics and, in particular, allows for objective measurement of the propagating expansion-contraction waves. The method includes capturing a time-series of optical images, and analyzing the images to produce a time-series of vector field maps based on measurements of local displacement of hemoglobin contrast. The method further includes obtaining a resulting time-dependent tensor field image and analyzing the resulting time-dependent tensor field image to obtain metrics of local and propagating oscillatory behavior.