Robust efficiency and actuator saturation explain healthy heart rate control and variability.

ABSTRACT: The correlation of healthy states with heart rate variability (HRV) using time series analyses is well documented. Whereas these studies note the accepted proximal role of autonomic nervous system balance in HRV patterns, the responsible deeper physiological, clinically relevant mechanisms have not been fully explained. Using mathematical tools from control theory, we combine mechanistic models of basic physiology with experimental exercise data from healthy human subjects to explain causal relationships among states of stress vs. health, HR control, and HRV, and more importantly, the physiologic requirements and constraints underlying these relationships. Nonlinear dynamics play an important explanatory role--most fundamentally in the actuator saturations arising from unavoidable tradeoff

SUBMITTER: Li N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4143073 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature