title: Assessment of electrophysiological state of heart in astronauts in terms of decartographic and conventional electrocardiographic characteristics.
abstract: Long-term observation of the heart state during specialized professional activities plays an important part in preventive medicine. This study is aimed at assessment of electrophysiological state of heart in astronauts by common electrocardiography, vectorcardiography, and dipole electrocardiotopography (DECARTO technique). The subjects observed were two astronauts performing a long-term flight at the Mir orbital station. DECARTO technique was used to obtain an intelligible-pictorial representation of the data in the form of so-called decartograms for visual and quantitative analysis. The observations showed rather stable chronotopography of the heart depolarization process. However, there was an increase of the maximal magnitude of the electric heart vector and a decrease of the ventricular gradient vector in the middle part of the flight. Just upon landing, a pronounced decrease of the ventricular gradient magnitude, followed by a fast restoration of its value was observed in both subjects. The DECARTO technique used in combination with vectorcardiography facilitated the detailed visual analysis of the electrocardiographic data. (Fig. 3, Ref. 3.)
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biomedical Problems, Moscow, Russia.
authors.forename: R M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Baevskii
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Moser
authors.forename: L I
authors.initials: LI
authors.lastname: Titomir
authors.forename: G G
authors.initials: GG
authors.lastname: Ivanov
authors.forename: E A
authors.initials: EA
authors.lastname: Aidu
authors.forename: V G
authors.initials: VG
authors.lastname: Trunov
authors.forename: I I
authors.initials: II
authors.lastname: Funtova
authors.forename: V N
authors.initials: VN
authors.lastname: Zhevnov
mesh_terms: D018480:Astronauts; D003198:Computer Simulation; D004562:Electrocardiography; D004594:Electrophysiology; D006321:Heart / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D013026:Space Flight; D014672:Vectorcardiography