Medical & biological engineering & computing
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Med Biol Eng Comput · Apr 2010
A novel online method to monitor autonomic nervous activity based on arterial wall impedance and heart rate variability.
This paper proposes a new method of evaluating autonomic nervous activity using the mechanical impedance of arterial walls and heart rate variability. The cardiovascular system is indispensable to life maintenance functions, and homeostasis is maintained by the autonomic nervous system. ⋯ In this paper, we monitored autonomic nervous system activity using the proposed system during endoscopic transthoracic sympathetic block surgery in eight patients with hyperhidrosis. The experimental results indicated that the proposed system can be used to estimate autonomic nervous activity in response to events during operations.