title: Linear and nonlinear measures of fetal heart rate patterns evaluated on very short fetal magnetocardiograms.
abstract: We analyzed the effectiveness of linear short- and long-term variability time domain parameters, an index of sympatho-vagal balance (SDNN/RMSSD) and entropy in differentiating fetal heart rate patterns (fHRPs) on the fetal heart rate (fHR) series of 5, 3 and 2 min duration reconstructed from 46 fetal magnetocardiograms. Gestational age (GA) varied from 21 to 38 weeks. FHRPs were classified based on the fHR standard deviation. In sleep states, we observed that vagal influence increased with GA, and entropy significantly increased (decreased) with GA (SDNN/RMSSD), demonstrating that a prevalence of vagal activity with autonomous nervous system maturation may be associated with increased sleep state complexity. In active wakefulness, we observed a significant negative (positive) correlation of short-term (long-term) variability parameters with SDNN/RMSSD. ANOVA statistics demonstrated that long-term irregularity and standard deviation of normal-to-normal beat intervals (SDNN) best differentiated among fHRPs. Our results confirm that short- and long-term variability parameters are useful to differentiate between quiet and active states, and that entropy improves the characterization of sleep states. All measures differentiated fHRPs more effectively on very short HR series, as a result of the fMCG high temporal resolution and of the intrinsic timescales of the events that originate the different fHRPs.
authors.affiliation: Departmento de Fisica e Matemática, FFCLRP-Universidade de São Paulo. Av. Bandeirantes, 3900, CEP 14040-901, Ribeirão Preto-SP, Brazil.
authors.forename: Eder Rezende
authors.initials: ER
authors.lastname: Moraes
authors.forename: Luiz Otavio
authors.initials: LO
authors.lastname: Murta
authors.forename: Oswaldo
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Baffa
authors.forename: Ronald T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Wakai
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Comani
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001519:Behavior / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D047109:Fetal Development / Q000502:physiology; D005333:Fetus / Q000502:physiology*; D005865:Gestational Age; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D016014:Linear Models; D053798:Magnetocardiography / Q000379:methods*; D017711:Nonlinear Dynamics; D011247:Pregnancy; D012307:Risk Factors; D012815:Signal Processing, Computer-Assisted; D013997:Time Factors