Ultra-short term HRV features as surrogates of short term HRV: a case study on mental stress detection in real life.

ABSTRACT:

Background

This paper suggests a method to assess the extent to which ultra-short Heart Rate Variability (HRV) features (less than 5?min) can be considered as valid surrogates of short HRV features (nominally 5?min). Short term HRV analysis has been widely investigated for mental stress assessment, whereas the validity of ultra-short HRV features remains unclear. Therefore, this study proposes a method to explore the extent to which HRV excerpts can be shortened without losing their ability to automatically detect mental stress.

Methods

ECGs were acquired from 42 healthy subjects during a university examination and resting condition. 23 features were extracted from HRV excerpts of different lengths (i.e., 30?s, 1?min, 2?min, 3?min, and 5?min). Significant differences between rest and stress phases were investigated using non-parametric statistical tests at different time-scales. Features extracted from each ultra-short length were compared with the standard short HRV features, assumed as the benchmark, via Spearman's rank correlation analysis and Bland-Altman plots during rest and stress phases. Using data-driven machine learning approaches, a model aiming to detect mental stress was trained, validated and tested using short HRV features, and assessed on the ultra-short HRV features.

Results

Six out of 23 ultra-short HRV features (MeanNN, StdNN, MeanHR, StdHR, HF, and SD2) displayed consistency across all of the excerpt lengths (i.e., from 5 to 1?min) and 3 out of those 6 ultra-short HRV features (MeanNN, StdHR, and HF) achieved good performance (accuracy above 88%) when employed in a well-dimensioned automatic classifier.

Conclusion

This study concluded that 6 ultra-short HRV features are valid surrogates of short HRV features for mental stress investigation.

SUBMITTER: Castaldo R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6335694 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature