Multifractality in human heartbeat dynamics.

Ivanov, PC, Amaral, LAN, Goldberger, AL, Havlin, S, Rosenblum, MG, Struzik, ZR, Stanley, HE.
Nature 399, 461-465 (1999)

Times cited: 495

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Abstract

There is evidence that physiological signals under healthy conditions may have a fractal temporal structure(1). Here we investigate the possibility that time series generated by certain physiological control systems may be members of a special class of complex processes, termed multifractal, which require a large number of exponents to characterize their scaling properties(2-6). We report on evidence for multifractality in a biological dynamical system, the healthy human heartbeat, and show that the multifractal character and nonlinear properties of the healthy heart rate are encoded in the Fourier phases. We uncover a loss of multifractality for a life-threatening condition, congestive heart failure.