Chronographic Imprint of Age-Induced Alterations in Heart Rate Dynamical Organization

Abstract

Beat-to-beat changes in the heart period are transformed into a network of increments between subsequent RR-intervals, which enables graphical descriptions of short-term heart period variability. Three types of such descriptions are considered: (1) network graphs arising from a set of vertices and directed edges, (2) contour plots of adjacency matrices A, representing the networks and transition matrices T, resulting from A, and (3) vector plots of gradients of the matrices A and T. Two indices are considered which summarize properties of A and T: the approximate deceleration capacity and the entropy rate. The method, applied to time series of nocturnal RR-intervals recorded from healthy subjects of different ages, reveals important aspect of changes in the autonomic activity caused by biological aging. Independent of the subject’s age, following accelerations, a pendulum-like dynamics appears. With decelerations, this dynamics develops in line with the subject’s age. This aging transition can be graphically visualized by vectors connecting the maxima of the transition probabilities of T, which, metaphorically, resemble a chronometer or the hands of a clock.

Heart Rate Fragmentation as a Novel Biomarker of Adverse Cardiovascular Events: The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis

“…More generally, HRF metrics belong to the new class of dynamical probes (Cysarz et al, 2000 ; Goldberger, 2006 ; Costa et al, 2014 ; Porta et al, 2015 ; Makowiec et al, 2015 ; Hoyer et al, 2017 ; Zhang et al, 2017 ) that can report, in real-time, on salient aspects of integrative, multiscale, regulatory systems and of their breakdown with aging and disease. The use of these probes may enhance the clinical utility of traditional risk assessment tools (Tables 3 , 4 ) and of other emerging technologies, such as genomic profiling.…”

Visualization of Heart Rate Variability of Long-Term Heart Transplant Patient by Transition Networks: A Case Report

“…Sleep, in general, can be assumed as a period of human activity which is free of external stimulation. Therefore, the nocturnal part of a 24-h Holter recording provides a good possibility of observing the state of the autonomic baseline (Stein and Pu, 2012 ; Chouchou and Desseilles, 2014 ; Makowiec et al, 2015 ). A recent review (Stein and Pu, 2012 ) advocates using nocturnal records for HRV analysis.…”

“…To elucidate post-HTx HRV values (e.g., to discern between HRV increase due to post-HTx rhythm alterations such as non-conducted atrial parasystole, recipient sinus activity or true reinnervation effect), new tools are clearly needed. Here we represent the short-term dynamics of nocturnal RR-intervals by the novel complex network tools (a transition network and its adjacency matrix, Donner et al, 2010 ; Makowiec et al, 2014 , 2015 ) and explore the visualization of this representation in assessment of HRV.…”

“…For additional analysis, a transition network—a novel network tool of time series representation (Donner et al, 2010 ; Makowiec et al, 2014 , 2015 ), was applied to changes in subsequent RR-intervals, called RR-increments. The transition network is constructed from ordered RR-increments (called vertices) which are connected by an edge if two RR-increments are adjacent in time.…”

Dynamical Landscape of Heart Rhythm in Long-Term Heart Transplant Recipients: A Way to Discern Erratic Rhythms

“…The control group was constructed from the pool of healthy people described in Makowiec et al ( 2015a ), whose age matched the age of the HTX patients considered. In total, this group consisted of 12 women and 15 men, aged 60–69.…”