Multifractality in Human Heartbeat Dynamics
Preprint
- 21 May 1999
Abstract
Recent evidence suggests that physiological signals under healthy conditions may have a fractal temporal structure. We investigate the possibility that time series generated by certain physiological control systems may be members of a special class of complex processes, termed multifractal, which require a large number of exponents to characterize their scaling properties. We report on evidence for multifractality in a biological dynamical system --- the healthy human heartbeat. Further, we show that the multifractal character and nonlinear properties of the healthy heart rate are encoded in the Fourier phases. We uncover a loss of multifractality for a life-threatening condition, congestive heart failure.Keywords
All Related Versions
- Version 1, 1999-05-21, ArXiv
- Published version: Nature, 399 (6735), 461.
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