Analysis of heart rate variability using time-varying filtering of heart transplanted patients

In this paper, we analyze the heart rate variability (HRV), obtained by using the time-varying integral pulse frequency modulation (TVIPFM) which is well adapted to the exercise stress testing. We consider that the mean heart period is varying function of time, during exercise. This technique allows the estimation of the autonomic nervous system modulation (ANS) from the beat occurrences. The estimated respiratory sinus arrhythmia is then filtered in the time-frequency domain around the respiration using a time-varying filter. It is proven that the Spectrogram is a convenient time-frequency representation that allows the implementation of such filter. The recorded data comes from exercise test performed by ten heart transplant patients. The magnitude of the filtered modulation of the heart rate due to respiration is compared to the date of transplantation taking into account the volume of respiration. It reveals that the normalized magnitude of the filtered variability, is significantly increased as the age of transplantation is higher with a high correlation coefficient (R=0.74, p=0.01). This correlation raised to 0.82 when considering dynamic behavior of the parameters. Applied to our dataset, standard parameter fails to exhibit such correlation.