title: A wavelet-based heart rate variability analysis for the study of nonsustained ventricular tachycardia.
abstract: It has been reported that the sympathovagal balance (SB) can be quantified by heart rate (HR) via the low-frequency (LF) to high-frequency (HF) spectral power ratio LF/HF. In this paper, an investigation of the relationship between the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and non-sustained ventricular tachycardia (NSVT) is presented. A wavelet transform (WT)-based approach for short-time heart rate variability (HRV) assessments is proposed for this aspect of analysis. The study was conducted on an RR-interval database consisting of 87 NSVT, 61 ischemic and five normal episodes. First, instantaneous SB estimates were generated by the proposed method. Then, waveforms of the WT-based SB evolutions were quantitatively examined. Numerical results showed that while a majority of SB waveforms (about 71%) derived from the non-NSVT population (i.e., ischemic and normal) appeared to come near oscillating with certain fixed levels, approximate 75% of SB evolutions underwent significantly rapid increases prior to the onset of NSVT, suggesting that an abrupt sympathovagal imbalance might partly account for the occurrence of NSVT.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic Engineering, Chang Gung University, Tao-Yuan, Taiwan. chensw@mail.cgu.edu.tw
authors.forename: Szi-Wen
authors.initials: SW
authors.lastname: Chen
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D003324:Coronary Artery Disease / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D008955:Models, Cardiovascular; D017202:Myocardial Ischemia / Q000150:complications / Q000175:diagnosis; D012372:ROC Curve; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D017180:Tachycardia, Ventricular / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000209:etiology