Abstract
The dynamics of heartbeat interval time series were studied by a modified random walk analysis recently introduced as Detrended Fluctuation Analysis. In this analysis, the intrinsic fractal long-range power-law correlations of beat-to-beat fluctuations generated by the dynamical system, after decomposition from extrinsic uncorrelated sources, can be quantified by the scaling exponent which, in healthy subjects, is - 1.0. The finding of a scaling coefficient of 1.0, indicating scale-invariant long-range power-law correlations (1/f noise) of heartbeat fluctuations, would reflect a genuinely self-similar fractal process that typically generates fluctuations on a wide range of time scales. The 1/f dynamics of heartbeat interval fluctuations are unaffected by exposure to chronic hypoxia at high altitude (> 5000 m) suggesting that the neuroautonomic cardiac control system is preadapted to hypoxia. Functional (hypothermia, cardiac disease) and/or structural (cardiac transplantation, early cardiac development) inactivation of neuroautonomic control is associated with the breakdown of fractal complexity reflected by anticorrelated random walk-like dynamics, indicating that in these conditions the heart is unadapted to its environment.
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Meyer, M. (2002). Fractal Scaling of Heartrate Dynamics in Health and Disease. In: Losa, G.A., Merlini, D., Nonnenmacher, T.F., Weibel, E.R. (eds) Fractals in Biology and Medicine. Mathematics and Biosciences in Interaction. Birkhäuser, Basel. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8119-7_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-0348-8119-7_20
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