Stochastic feedback and the regulation of biological rhythms
Ivanov PC, Amaral LAN, Goldberger AL, Stanley HEEurophysics Letters 43, 363 - 368 (1998)
Times cited: 111
Abstract
We propose a general approach to the question of how biological rhythms spontaneously self-regulate, based on the concept of “stochastic feedback”. We illustrate this approach by considering at a coarse-grained level the neuroautonomic regulation of the heart rate. The model generates complex dynamics and successfully accounts for key characteristics of cardiac variability, including the 1/f power spectrum, the functional form and scaling of the distribution of variations, and correlations in the Fourier phases indicating nonlinear dynamics.