A feedback analysis of heart rate fluctuations related to blood pressure change: effect of autonomic blockade

This paper describes the method of relating changes in blood pressure to the heart rate fluctuations. A linear signal generation model with a feedback loop has been introduced and bivariate autoregressive model is applied for the analysis. Computer simulation was carried out to see if the transfer characteristics in both directions could be estimated accurately under the circumstance where both heart rate and blood pressure have a common exogenous source of fluctuations with 1/f spectral pattern. Then the method was applied to the data from 14 male subjects aged from 19 to 38. It was concluded that the parasympathetic blockade abolishes the impulse response of the heart rate fluctuations to the change in blood pressure.