Nonlinear Phenomena in Complex Systems, 2002, Vol.5, No.4, pp.462-469

NONLINEAR PHENOMENA IN COMPLEX SYSTEMS
An Interdisciplinary Journal

2002, Vol.5, No.4, pp.462-469

Cardiorespiratory Interactions.
Aneta Stefanovska

The cardiac and respiratory systems each function in an oscillatory manner, providing a nice example of coupled biological oscillators. The modulation of the cardiac frequency, called respiratory arrhythmia, has long been known. Synchronization analyses have recently confirmed that, in a conscious healthy subject at rest, the two systems can synchronize for a short episodes of time. In experiments with paced respiration we show that the synchronization and modulation can coexist. The respiratory system is the driving system at all respiration frequencies, whether paced or spontaneous.
Key words: biological oscillators, synchronization, modulation, direction of coupling, cardiovascular system

Full text: Acrobat PDF (891KB) PostScript (3045KB) PostScript.gz (277KB)