Fractal Heart Rate

A heart rate characterized as fractal is changing, moving between periods of fast beats and slow beats. Because the heart can beat at different speeds based on different stimuli, it's difficult for doctors to predict what a patient's heart rate is likely to do. Fractal analysis is a statistical tool that helps doctors and researchers identify and study these changes in heart rate.

Fractal Systems

According to the Centre for Fractal Design and Consultancy, fractal studies is an emerging field of science that attempts to explain the movements and interactions of smaller units within a whole. Fractal studies can be used to understand neurons, atoms or molecules --- each of these units has the ability to function independently within a whole yet they also have the ability to evolve, potentially changing the behavior of that whole. By graphing and charting a unit's movement, scientists can try to identify useful patterns.

Arrhythmia

Arrhythmia is a condition in which your heart doesn't beat at a consistent speed. The American Heart Association notes that although arrhythmias aren't always dangerous, they have the potential to cause your heart to pump less effectively. Sometimes an arrhythmic episode is brief; other times, they last long enough to disrupt your heart rate as measured by a doctor. This condition can be frustrating to diagnose and monitor because there is no set average heart rate against which to measure --- your heart rate changes based on your breathing rate, excitement or exertion.

Arrhythmia and Fractal Analysis

Medical scientists can apply a fractal analysis to the heartbeats of patients experiencing arrhythmia. According to L.S. Liebovitch, T. Penzel and J.W. Kantelhardt in "The Science of Disasters," fractal analysis has shown there is a pattern between an arrhythmic patient's periods of rapid heart rate and the patient's periods of additional heartbeats. Although fractal analysis cannot pinpoint exactly when an arrhythmic patient will next experience a rapid heart rate, doctors may be able to use fractal analysis to better understand the patterns within arrhythmia.

Sleep Physiology

Scientists have also used fractal analysis to study the patterns of heartbeat during sleep. Liebovitch and his co-authors note that your heartbeat follows different beat patterns during the three stages of sleep: deep sleep, light sleep and REM sleep. Fractal analysis has shown that only in the period of REM sleep does your brain activity correlate predictably with your heartbeat. Your heartbeat during deep and light sleep is subject to change based on varying brain activity and breathing time, both of which can somewhat be predicted using fractal analysis.

Diagnosis Potential

An emerging field of medicine involves using fractal analysis to diagnose patients who are likely to suffer a heart attack. In "Self-Organized Biological Dynamics and Nonlinear Control," contributing authors Peng, Hausdorff and Goldberger gathered 69 heart rate recordings from both patients with chronic congestive heart failure and control subjects. They analyzed the data using both fractal analysis and traditional statistical analysis. The authors note that the fractal analysis gave them more insight into probable mortality than traditional statistical heart rate analysis.