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On arousal from sleep: time-frequency analysis

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Abstract

Time-frequency analysis of the heart rate variability during arousal from sleep, with and without EMG activation, coming from five obese healthy subjects was performed. Additionally, a comparative analysis of three time-frequency distributions, smooth pseudo Wigner–Ville (SPWVD), Choi–Williams (CWD) and Born–Jordan distribution (BJD) is presented in this study. SPWVD showed higher capacity for eliminating the cross terms independently of the signal. After applying Hilbert transformation to real signals BJD and CWD lost some important mathematic properties as marginals, on the contrary PSWVD remains unchanged. BJD showed results comparable with CWD. During arousal episodes, analogous energy distribution and spectral indexes were obtained by the three time-frequency representations. Arousals with chin activity presented stronger changes in RR intervals and LF (related to sympathetic activity) component, being statistically different with respect to arousal without chin activity, only around the period of maximum change in β activity on the EEG. These results suggest a more evident stress for the heart when an arousal is related to external muscular activity.

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Acknowledgments

This paper was partially supported by the MyHeart Project IST 507816 of the European Community and by CONACyT (Mexico), grant 169435/205104.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Politecnico di Milano, P.zza Leonardo da Vinci 32, 20133, Milan, Italy

    M. O. Mendez, A. M. Bianchi & S. Cerutti

  2. Department of Clinic Science, University of Milan, Ospedale L. Sacco, Milan, Italy

    N. Montano

  3. Hospital Unit of Respiratory Rehabilitation, Ospedale S. Marta, Ospedale Maggiore di Crema (CR), Rivolta D’adda, Italy

    V. Patruno & S. Aiolfi

  4. Communication Technology Group, University of Zaragoza, Zaragoza, Spain

    E. Gil

  5. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Fac. Ingeniería, Universidad Nacional de Entre Ríos, Parana, Argentina

    C. Mantaras

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  1. M. O. Mendez
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Correspondence to M. O. Mendez.

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Mendez, M.O., Bianchi, A.M., Montano, N. et al. On arousal from sleep: time-frequency analysis. Med Biol Eng Comput 46, 341–351 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-008-0309-z

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