Deriving electrophysiological phenotypes of paroxysmal atrial fibrillation based on the characteristics of heart rate variability

Aim. To analyze heart rate variability of patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation and identify electrophysiological phenotypes of the disease by using methods of exploratory analysis of twenty-four-hour electrocardiographic (Holter) recordings. Methods. 64 electrocardiogram recordings of patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation were selected from the open Long-Term Atrial Fibrillation Database (repository PhysioNet). 52 indices of heart rhythm variability were calculated for each recording, including new heart rate fragmentation and asymmetry indices proposed in the last 5 years. Data analysis was carried out with machine learning methods: dimensionality reduction with principal component analysis, hierarchical clustering and outlier detection. Feature correlation was checked by the Pearson criterion, the selected patients subgroups were confirmed by using MannWhitney and Student's tests. Results. For the vast majority of patients with paroxysmal atrial fibrillation, heart rate variability can be described by five parameters. Each of these parameters captures a distinct approach in heart rate variability classification: dispersion characteristics of interbeat intervals, frequency characteristics of interbeat intervals, measurements of heart rate fragmentation, indices based on heart rate asymmetry, mean and median of interbeat intervals. Two large phenotypes of the disease were derived based on these parameters: the first phenotype is a vagotonic profile with a significant increase of linear parasympathetic indices and paroxysmal atrial fibrillation lasting longer than 4.5 hours; the second phenotype with increased sympathetic indices, low parasympathetic indices and paroxysms lasting up to 4.5 hours. Conclusion. Our findings indicate the potential of nonlinear analysis in the study of heart rate variability and demonstrate the feasibility of further integration of nonlinear indices for arrhythmia phenotyping.