Symbolic dynamics of QT interval series in ischemic cardiomyopathy

Repolarization dynamics may be of increasing interest in analyzing ECG-Holter for characterization of myocardial ischemic events related to cardiac death. The quantification of the dynamics of the beat-to-beat QT interval fluctuations, representing changes in repolarization duration, may be another emerging marker of cardiac events. Based on these arguments, we propose a symbolic analysis series to quantify the dynamics of the beat-to-beat QT interval fluctuations, representing changes in repolarization duration, and the prevalence of sympathetic or parasympathetic cardiac modulation in the RR series. This analysis decomposes the series in patterns of length L=3 beat and classify them into three categories: non-variable, variable, and very variable patterns referred to as P0, P1 and P2 patterns. The present work analyses QT and RR series obtained from 24-hour ECG-Holter recordings in order to obtained patterns able to stratify high (HRG) and low risk (LRG) of suffer cardiac mortality in patients with symptomatic myocardial ischemia. Comparing LRG and HRG, results showed that pattern P0 could better quantify QT series and pattern P2 the RR series. These findings suggest a decreased cardiac vagal function with a relative increase in sympathetic cardiac modulation, and more complex pattern of ventricular repolarization in the HRG.Peer ReviewedPostprint (published version

An Analysis of Resting-State Functional Transcranial Doppler Recordings from Middle Cerebral Arteries

Functional transcrannial Doppler (fTCD) is used for monitoring the hemodynamics characteristics of major cerebral arteries. Its resting-state characteristics are known only when considering the maximal velocity corresponding to the highest Doppler shift (so called the envelope signals). Significantly more information about the resting-state fTCD can be gained when considering the raw cerebral blood flow velocity (CBFV) recordings. In this paper, we considered simultaneously acquired envelope and raw CBFV signals. Specifically, we collected bilateral CBFV recordings from left and right middle cerebral arteries using 20 healthy subjects (10 females). The data collection lasted for 15 minutes. The subjects were asked to remain awake, stay silent, and try to remain thought-free during the data collection. Time, frequency and time-frequency features were extracted from both the raw and the envelope CBFV signals. The effects of age, sex and body-mass index were examined on the extracted features. The results showed that the raw CBFV signals had a higher frequency content, and its temporal structures were almost uncorrelated. The information-theoretic features showed that the raw recordings from left and right middle cerebral arteries had higher content of mutual information than the envelope signals. Age and body-mass index did not have statistically significant effects on the extracted features. Sex-based differences were observed in all three domains and for both, the envelope signals and the raw CBFV signals. These findings indicate that the raw CBFV signals provide valuable information about the cerebral blood flow which can be utilized in further validation of fTCD as a clinical tool. © 2013 Sejdić et al

Low-intensity resistance exercise does not affect cardiac autonomic modulation in patients with peripheral artery disease

OBJECTIVE: To analyze the effect of a single bout of resistance exercise on cardiac autonomic modulation in patients with peripheral artery disease. METHODS: Fifteen patients with peripheral artery disease (age: 58.3±4.0 years) underwent the following sessions in a random order: resistance exercise (three sets of 10 repetitions of the six resistance exercises with a workload of 5-7 in the OMNI-RES scale) and control (similar to the resistance session; however, the resistance exercises were performed with no load). The frequency domain (low frequency, high frequency and sympathovagal balance) and symbolic analysis (0V, 1V and 2V patterns) of heart rate variability were obtained before and until one hour after the interventions. RESULTS: After the resistance exercise and control sessions, similar increases were observed in the consecutive heartbeat intervals (control: 720.8±28.6 vs. 790.9±34.4 ms; resistance exercise: 712.9±30.1 vs. 756.8±37.9 ms;

Effects of vildagliptin compared with glibenclamide on glucose variability after a submaximal exercise test in patients with type 2 diabetes: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial, DIABEX VILDA

Background: Cardiovascular disease, endothelial dysfunction, and oxidative stress are common complications among patients with type 2 diabetes (T2DM). in addition to the average blood glucose concentration, glycemic variability may be an important factor for the development of chronic diabetes complications. Patients with T2DM are treated with various types of oral glucose-lowering drugs. Exercise is considered to benefit the health of both healthy and unhealthy individuals, which has been confirmed by a number of scientific research studies in which the participants' health improved. Our general aim in this study will be to evaluate glucose variability after submaximal exercise test in patients receiving treatment with either vildagliptin or glibenclamide. the specific aims of this study are to evaluate the oxidative stress, endothelial function, and metabolic and cardiovascular responses to exercise under treatment with vildagliptin or glibenclamide. All these responses are important in patients with T2DM.Methods/Design: This study is a PROBE (Prospective, Randomized, Open-label, Blinded-Endpoint) design clinical trial. the estimated sample needed is 20 patients with T2DM. in addition to the routine treatment (metformin), patients will receive a second drug orally for 12 weeks: the METV group will receive metformin plus vildagliptin (50 mg twice daily), and the METG group will receive metformin plus glibenclamide (5 to 10 mg twice daily.). Before and after intervention, evaluation of glycemic variability, endothelial function, oxidative stress, and metabolic and cardiovascular response will be performed at rest, during and after a submaximal exercise test (30 minutes, with an intensity based at 10% under the heart rate at the second threshold).Discussion: in addition to drug treatment, exercise is recommended for treatment of glycemic control in patients with T2DM, especially for its beneficial effects on blood glucose and HbA1c. Few studies have determined the effects of the association between exercise and oral glucose-lowering drugs. the study will be conducted to assess the metabolic and cardiovascular responses at rest, and during and after submaximal exercise in patients receiving one of two oral glucose-lowering drugs (vildagliptin or glibenclamide).Novartis(R)Hosp Clin Porto Alegre, Exercise Pathophysiol Res Lab, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilHosp Clin Porto Alegre, Div Cardiol, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilHosp Clin Porto Alegre, Div Endocrinol, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Sci & Technol, Inst Sci & Technol, Sao Jose Dos Campos, SP, BrazilUniv Fed Rio Grande do Sul, Fac Med, Dept Internal Med, Porto Alegre, RS, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Dept Sci & Technol, Inst Sci & Technol, Sao Jose Dos Campos, SP, BrazilWeb of Scienc

Characterization of autonomic states by complex sympathetic and parasympathetic dynamics*

Assessment of heartbeat dynamics provides a promising framework for non-invasive monitoring of cardiovascular and autonomic states. Nevertheless, the non-specificity of such measurements among clinical populations and healthy conditions associated with different autonomic states severely limits their applicability and exploitation in naturalistic conditions. This limitation arises especially when pathological or postural change-related sympathetic hyperactivity is compared to autonomic changes across age and experimental conditions. In this frame, we investigate the intrinsic irregularity and complexity of cardiac sympathetic and vagal activity series in different populations, which are associated with different cardiac autonomic dynamics. Sample entropy, fuzzy entropy, and distribution entropy are calculated on the recently proposed sympathetic and parasympathetic activity indices (SAI and PAI) series, which are derived from publicly available heartbeat series of congestive heart failure patients, elderly and young subjects watching a movie in the supine position, and healthy subjects undergoing slow postural changes. Results show statistically significant differences between pathological/old subjects and young subjects in the resting state and during slow tilt, with interesting trends in SAI- and PAI-related entropy values. Moreover, while CHF patients and healthy subjects in upright position show the higher cardiac sympathetic activity, elderly and young subjects in resting state showed higher vagal activity. We conclude that quantification of intrinsic cardiac complexity from sympathetic and vagal dynamics may provide new physiology insights and improve on the non-specificity of heartbeat-derived biomarkers

Calculating permutation entropy without permutations

A method for analyzing sequential data sets, similar to the permutation entropy one, is discussed. The characteristic features of this method are as follows: it preserves information about equal values, if any, in the embedding vectors; it is exempt of combinatorics; it delivers the same entropy value as does the permutation method, provided the embedding vectors do not have equal components. In the latter case this method can be used instead of the permutation one. If embedding vectors have equal components this method could be more precise in discriminating between similar data sets.Comment: 17 pages, 2 figures, 23 references, 6 tables. This version is accepted in the Complexity (Hindawi

Evaluation of Cardiac Autonomic Modulation Using Symbolic Dynamics after Cardiac Transplantation

Objective: To characterize the behavior of cardiac autonomic modulation in individuals with different times after orthotopic heart transplantation (HTx) using symbolic dynamics analysis. Methods: Sixty patients were evaluated after HTx. We recorded their instantaneous R-R intervals (RRi) by cardiac monitor Polar (R) RS800CX (TM) (Polar Electro Oy, Kempele, Finland) for 10 minutes. The same sequence of RRi with 256 consecutive beats was used to perform spectral analysis and symbolic dynamics analysis. We used hierarchical clustering to form groups. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) (with Holm-Sidak method) or one-way Kruskal-Wallis test (with Dunn's post-hoc test) was used to analyze the difference between groups. Linear correlation analysis between variables was performed using Pearson's or Spearman's tests. P-value < 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results: The 0V% index increased, the 2UV% index and the normalized complexity index decreased with an increase of HTx postoperative time. There were a negative correlation between complexity indexes and 0V% and a positive correlation between complexity indexes and 2UV%. Conclusion: Symbolic dynamics indexes were able to show a specific cardiac autonomic modulation pattern for HTx recipients with different postoperative times

Automatic discrimination between safe and unsafe swallowing using a reputation-based classifier

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Swallowing accelerometry has been suggested as a potential non-invasive tool for bedside dysphagia screening. Various vibratory signal features and complementary measurement modalities have been put forth in the literature for the potential discrimination between safe and unsafe swallowing. To date, automatic classification of swallowing accelerometry has exclusively involved a single-axis of vibration although a second axis is known to contain additional information about the nature of the swallow. Furthermore, the only published attempt at automatic classification in adult patients has been based on a small sample of swallowing vibrations.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>In this paper, a large corpus of dual-axis accelerometric signals were collected from 30 older adults (aged 65.47 ± 13.4 years, 15 male) referred to videofluoroscopic examination on the suspicion of dysphagia. We invoked a reputation-based classifier combination to automatically categorize the dual-axis accelerometric signals into safe and unsafe swallows, as labeled via videofluoroscopic review. From these participants, a total of 224 swallowing samples were obtained, 164 of which were labeled as unsafe swallows (swallows where the bolus entered the airway) and 60 as safe swallows. Three separate support vector machine (SVM) classifiers and eight different features were selected for classification.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>With selected time, frequency and information theoretic features, the reputation-based algorithm distinguished between safe and unsafe swallowing with promising accuracy (80.48 ± 5.0%), high sensitivity (97.1 ± 2%) and modest specificity (64 ± 8.8%). Interpretation of the most discriminatory features revealed that in general, unsafe swallows had lower mean vibration amplitude and faster autocorrelation decay, suggestive of decreased hyoid excursion and compromised coordination, respectively. Further, owing to its performance-based weighting of component classifiers, the static reputation-based algorithm outperformed the democratic majority voting algorithm on this clinical data set.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Given its computational efficiency and high sensitivity, reputation-based classification of dual-axis accelerometry ought to be considered in future developments of a point-of-care swallow assessment where clinical informatics are desired.</p

Exponential law of chaotic cardiac dynamics applied to 18 hours

Introduction: The application of an exponential law for chaotic dynamic cardiac systems has been reduced to 18&nbsp;hours for Holter analysis, quantifying normal and pathological cardiac dynamics, as well as the evolution between these states. Methodology: 80 electrocardiographic records were analyzed, 15 with normal dynamics and 65 with different pathologies. A chaotic attractor was constructed for each cardiac dynamic based on the simulation of the cardiac frequency sequence for 18 hours, after the fractal dimension of each attractor and its spatial occupation were found. The differentiating parameters of the chaotic exponential law were applied differentiating normal cardiac dynamics from those pathological, finally the sensitivity, specificity and Kappa coefficient were calculated. Results:&nbsp;The normal dynamics presented occupancy spaces above 200 in the Kp grid, and for the Kg grid above 67. In the cases of acute disease, the values in the Kp and Kg grids were below 73 and 22 respectively. The values of sensitivity and specificity were 100% and the Kappa coefficient was 1. Conclusion: The application of the exponential law for 18 hours showed that it was possible to characterize mathematically the cardiac dynamics, allowing reducing the time of evaluation.&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;Introducción: La aplicación de una ley exponencial para los sistemas dinámicos caóticos cardiacos ha sido reducida a 18 horas para el análisis del Holter, cuantificando las dinámicas cardiacas normales y patológicas, así como la evolución entre estos estados. Metodología: Se analizaron 80 registros electrocardiográficos, 15 con dinámicas normales y 65 con diferentes patologías. Se construyó un atractor caótico para cada dinámica cardiaca a partir de la simulación de la secuencia de las frecuencias cardiacas durante 18 horas, posteriormente se halló la dimensión fractal de cada atractor y su ocupación espacial. Los parámetros diferenciadores de la ley caótica exponencial fueron aplicados diferenciando dinámicas cardiacas normales de aquellas patológicas, finalmente se calculó la sensibilidad, especificidad y coeficiente Kappa. Resultados: Las dinámicas normales presentaron espacios de ocupación por encima de 200 en la rejillla Kp, y para la rejilla Kg por encima de 67. Para los casos de enfermedad aguda los valores en las rejillas Kp y Kg estuvieron por debajo de 73 y 22 respectivamente. Los valores de sensibilidad y especificidad fueron de 100% y el coeficiente Kappa fue de 1. Conclusión: La aplicación de la ley exponencial durante 18 horas mostro que fue posible caracterizar matemáticamente las dinámicas cardiacas, permitiendo reducir el tiempo de evaluación.&nbsp