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Summary: VOLUME 87, NUMBER 6 P H Y S I C A L R E V I E W L E T T E R S 6 AUGUST 2001
Noise Effects on the Complex Patterns of Abnormal Heartbeats
Verena Schulte-Frohlinde,1 Yosef Ashkenazy,1 Plamen Ch. Ivanov,1,2
Leon Glass,3 Ary L. Goldberger,2 and H. Eugene Stanley1
1
Center for Polymer Studies, Department of Physics, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215
2
Cardiovascular Division, Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, Massachusetts 02215
3
Department of Physiology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G IY6
(Received 6 November 2000; published 24 July 2001)
Patients at high risk for sudden death often exhibit complex heart rhythms in which abnormal heart-
beats are interspersed with normal heartbeats. We analyze such a complex rhythm in a single patient over
a 12-h period and show that the rhythm can be described by a theoretical model consisting of two interact-
ing oscillators with stochastic elements. By varying the magnitude of the noise, we show that for an inter-
mediate level of noise, the model gives best agreement with key statistical features of the dynamics.
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.068104 PACS numbers: 87.19.Hh, 05.40.Ca, 05.45.Tp, 89.75.Kd
Individuals with frequent abnormal heartbeats (Fig. 1)
may be at high risk for sudden cardiac death [1]. Such
abnormal heart rhythms often have a random appearance.
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