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Spatial complexity and spectral distribution variability of atrial activity in surface ECG recordings of atrial fibrillation

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Abstract

Considerable research effort has been devoted to the estimation of the degree of organisation of atrial fibrillation (AF), to potentially support clinical decision making. The aims of this study were to: (1) analyse the temporal variability of spatial organisation (complexity) and spectral distribution of AF in body surface potential maps (BSPM), proposing an automated implementation of the analysis and (2) assess the applicability to reduced lead-sets. Twenty-one persistent AF recordings of 3 min each (64 BSPM: 32 anterior, 32 posterior) were analysed. The relationship between spatial organisation (C) and its variability (CV) was quantified on automatically delineated TQ segments. The relationship between spectral concentration (SC) and spectral variability (SV) was quantified on the atrial activity (AA) extracted using principal component analysis. Three different lead-sets: 64, 32 anterior and 10 anterior channels were considered. Significant (p < 0.001) correlation (ρ) was found: ρ(CV, C) ≥0.80, ρ(SC, SV) ≤−0.83 for all lead-sets. The results suggest that a higher degree of spatial organisation is associated with reduced variability of spatial organisation over time, and lower spectral variability associated with more prominent spectral peak in the AF frequency band (4–10 Hz).

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank Susan King at the Regional Medical Physics Department, Freeman Hospital, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, for data collection.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest, financial or otherwise, related to this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Electronics, Computer Science and Systems (DEIS), University of Bologna, Viale Risorgimento 2, 40136, Bologna, Italy

    Luigi Y. Di Marco

  2. University Department of Cardiology, Freeman Hospital, Freeman Road, Newcastle Upon Tyne, NE7 7DN, UK

    John P. Bourke

  3. Institute of Cellular Medicine, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH, UK

    Philip Langley

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  1. Luigi Y. Di Marco
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  2. John P. Bourke
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  3. Philip Langley
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Correspondence to Luigi Y. Di Marco.

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Di Marco, L.Y., Bourke, J.P. & Langley, P. Spatial complexity and spectral distribution variability of atrial activity in surface ECG recordings of atrial fibrillation. Med Biol Eng Comput 50, 439–446 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-012-0878-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11517-012-0878-8

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