News Physiol Sci. 1991 Apr;6:87-91.  

Is the normal heartbeat chaotic or homeostatic?

Goldberger AL.

Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02215.

Limits to the usefulness of homeostasis as a guiding physiological principle are
revealed by new mechanisms derived from study of nonlinear systems that generate
a type of variability called chaos.  Loss of complex physiological variability
may occur in certain pathological conditions including heart rate dynamics
before sudden death and with aging.

Publication Types:
    Review
    Review, Tutorial

PMID: 11537649 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]