IEEE J Biomed Health Inform. 2018 Sep;22(5):1332-1340. doi: 10.1109/JBHI.2017.2775059. Epub 2017 Nov 17.
Asthma is a chronic lung disease that usually develops during childhood. Despite that symptoms can almost be controlled with medication, early diagnosis is desirable in order to reduce permanent airway obstruction risk. It has been suggested that abnormal parasympathetic nervous system (PSNS) activity might be closely related with the pathogenesis of asthma, and that this PSNS activity could be reflected in cardiac vagal control. In this work, an index to characterize the spectral distribution of the high frequency (HF) component of heart rate variability (HRV), named peakness ($\wp$), is proposed. Three different implementations of $\wp$, based on electrocardiogram (ECG) recordings, impedance pneumography (IP) recordings and a combination of both, were employed in the characterization of a group of preschool children classified attending to their risk of developing asthma. Peakier components were observed in the HF band of those children classified as high-risk ( $p < 0.005$), who also presented reduced sympathvoagal balance. Results suggest that high-risk of developing asthma might be related with a lack of adaptability of PSNS.
哮喘是一种慢性肺部疾病，通常在儿童时期发展。尽管症状可以通过药物几乎得到控制，但早期诊断是可取的，以降低永久性气道阻塞的风险。有人提出，副交感神经系统（PSNS）活动的异常可能与哮喘的发病机制密切相关，而这种 PSNS 活动可以反映在心脏迷走神经控制中。在这项工作中，提出了一个用于描述心率变异性（HRV）高频（HF）分量谱分布的指标，称为峰值（$\wp$）。基于心电图（ECG）记录、阻抗肺图（IP）记录和两者的组合，对三种不同的 $\wp$ 实现方法进行了研究，用于对一组根据哮喘发病风险进行分类的学龄前儿童进行特征描述。在被归类为高风险的儿童（$p < 0.005$）的 HRV 高频带中观察到了更陡峭的分量，这些儿童的交感神经和迷走神经平衡也降低了。结果表明，发展为哮喘的高风险可能与 PSNS 的适应性不足有关。
