PhysioDataBase: Free online repository for heart rate variability studies

Heart Rate Variability (HRV) analysis is becoming an important area of study that can help in the diagnosis of several diseases, as well as in the identification of human emotional responses to different external stimuli. Recent research has addressed the analysis of HRV in these fields. However, in many occasions, the lack of common databases prevents researchers from validating their results by comparing them with other investigators' findings. This may significantly decrease the quality of the reached conclusions. In an effort to solve this problem, we present PhysioDataBase, a free online repository dedicated to physiologic signals and data exchange. PhysioDataBase allows researchers to create and share with the scientific community physiological signal files, and relevant complementary information, such as sociodemographic data, medication, or clinical history. All this information can be downloaded and used for performing HRV studies.