Regulation of Heart Beats by the Autonomous Nervous System in Health and Disease: Point-Process-Theory based Models and Simulation

Abstract

We have advanced a point-process based framework for the regulation of heart beats by the autonomous nervous system and analyzed the model with and without feedback. The model without feedback was found amenable to several analytical results that help develop an intuition about the way the heart interacts with the nervous system. However, in reality, feedback, baroreflex and chemoreflex controls are important to model healthy and unhealthy scenarios for the heart. Based on the Hurst exponent as an index of health of the heart we show how the state of the nervous system may tune it in health and disease. Monte Carlo simulation is used to generate RR interval series of the Electrocardiogram (ECG) for different sympathetic and parasympathetic nerve excitations. Key words: Heart, Autonomous Nervous System, ECG, RR intervals, Hurst Exponents, Point-Process Theory, Monte Carlo Simulation