title: Beat to beat wavelet variability in atrial fibrillation.
abstract: Atrial fibrillation (AF) is a complex phenomenon, related with a multitude of factors, including the electrical properties of the atrial substrate. The purpose of this work is to present a method that highlights electrocardiographic differences between normal subjects and patients with paroxysmal AF episodes (PAF), potentially related with substrate differences. Vectorcardiography recordings are considered and, for each lead (X-Y-Z), on a beat by beat basis, a steady window before QRS, corresponding to the atrial activity, is analysed via continuous wavelet transform. Wavelet-based parameters are calculated and compared between the normal and AF group, with the beat to beat variation of wavelet energy as the most important feature showing a significantly higher variability in the AF group.
authors.affiliation: Lab of Medical Informatics, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. dimitrisfilos@gmail.com
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Filos
authors.forename: I
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Chouvarda
authors.forename: G
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dakos
authors.forename: V
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Vassilikos
authors.forename: N
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Maglaveras
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001281:Atrial Fibrillation / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000503:physiopathology*; D003936:Diagnosis, Computer-Assisted / Q000379:methods*; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014672:Vectorcardiography / Q000379:methods*; D058067:Wavelet Analysis