Comput Phys Commun. 1999;121-122:126-8.  

Modeling heart rate variability by stochastic feedback.

Amaral LA, Goldberger AL, Ivanov PCh, Stanley HE.

Department of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge 02139,
USA. http://polymer.bu.edu/amaral

We consider the question of how the cardiac rhythm spontaneously self-regulates
and propose a new mechanism as a possible answer. We model the neuroautonomic
regulation of the heart rate as a stochastic feedback system and find that the
model successfully accounts for key characteristics of cardiac variability,
including the 1/f power spectrum, the functional form and scaling of the
distribution of variations of the interbeat intervals, and the correlations in
the Fourier phases which indicate nonlinear dynamics.

PMID: 11542688 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]