The Analysis of Respiratory Sinus Arrhythmia Using Spectral Analysis and Digital Filtering

Respiratory sinus arrhythmia is the phenomenon by which respiration modulates heart rate in normal humans and in many animals. This investigation was divided into the following three categories: 1) the development of a mathematical model relating respiration to those variations that it causes in heart rate; 2) the use of digital filtering techniques to attenuate fluctuations in heart rate which are due to respiration; and 3) the development of methods that use only heart rate to get information about respiration.