Sleep electroencephalography and heart rate variability interdependence amongst healthy subjects and insomnia/schizophrenia patients

• Published in: Medical & biological engineering & computing Vol. 54; no. 1; pp. 77 - 91
• Main Authors: Chaparro-Vargas, Ramiro, Schilling, Claudia, Schredl, Michael, Cvetkovic, Dean
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.01.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Analysis; Antipsychotics; Assessments; Bioengineering; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering; Biomedicine; Case-Control Studies; Coherence; Comorbidity; Computation; Computer Applications; Electroencephalography; Female; Heart Rate; Human Physiology; Humans; Hypotheses; Imaging; Insomnia; Laboratories; Male; Mental disorders; Mental health; Nervous system; Neurosciences; Original Article; Patients; Physiology; Psychotropic drugs; Radiology; Schizophrenia; Schizophrenia - physiopathology; Sleep; Sleep - physiology; Sleep Initiation and Maintenance Disorders - physiopathology; Statistical analysis; Statistical methods; Studies; Primary insomnia; EEG; Wavelet coherence; Schizophrenia; Phase synchronisation; HRV; Phase locking value
• ISSN: 0140-0118; 1741-0444; 1741-0444
• DOI: 10.1007/s11517-015-1297-4

The quantification of interdependencies within autonomic nervous system has gained increasing importance to characterise healthy and psychiatric disordered subjects. The present work introduces a biosignal processing approach, suggesting a computational resource to estimate coherent or synchronised interactions as an eventual supportive aid in the diagnosis of primary insomnia and schizophrenia pathologies. By deploying linear, nonlinear and statistical methods upon 25 electroencephalographic and electrocardiographic overnight sleep recordings, the assessment of cross-correlation, wavelet coherence and n : m phase synchronisation is focused on tracking discerning features amongst the clinical cohorts. Our results indicate that certain neuronal oscillations interact with cardiac power bands in distinctive ways responding to standardised sleep stages and patient groups, which promotes the hypothesis of subtle functional dynamics between neuronal assembles and (para)sympathetic activity subject to pathophysiological conditions.