The American journal of physiology
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Clinical Trial Controlled Clinical Trial
On the fractal nature of heart rate variability in humans: effects of data length and beta-adrenergic blockade.
In the present study, we reinvestigated the question of whether human heart rate variability (HRV) is fractal in nature. Ten healthy volunteers participated in either of two studies conducted while beat-by-beat long-term HRV (8,500 heartbeats) was recorded for 2-3 h in the quiet, awake state in the supine position. In the first study, five subjects were tested four times each to evaluate the basic fractal nature of human HRV. ⋯ With propranolol, these basic properties of fractal HRV dynamics remained unchanged despite an increase in the mean RR interval (placebo, 912 +/- 111 ms; propranolol, 1,134 +/- 133 ms, P < 0.05) and a change in the harmonic spectral shape evaluated by LF/HF (placebo, 2.76 +/- 1.57; propranolol, 1.82 +/- 0.81, P < 0.05). For short-term data, less power was extracted as fractal because of the absence of the very low frequency component, yet the beta and LF/HF were unchanged from long-term data. These findings indicate that 1) the observed inversely proportional frequency (1/f) spectrum in human resting HRV is due to underlying random fractal dynamics and 2) the sympathetic nervous system seemed to play a minor role in modulating the fractal HRV dynamics.