Complex Dynamics in Physiological Systems: From Heart to Brain

Nonlinear dynamics has become an important field of research in recent years in many areas of the natural sciences. In particular, it has potential applications in biology and medicine; nonlinear data analysis has helped to detect the progress of cardiac disease, physiological disorders, for example episodes of epilepsy, and others. This book focuses on the current trends of research concerning the prediction of sudden cardiac death and the onset of epileptic seizures, using the nonlinear analysis based on ECG and EEG data. Topics covered include the analysis of cardiac models and neural models. The book is a collection of recent research papers by leading physicists, mathematicians, cardiologists and neurobiologists who are actively involved in using the concepts of nonlinear dynamics to explore the functional behaviours of heart and brain under normal and pathological conditions. This collection is intended for students in physics, mathematics and medical sciences, and researchers in interdisciplinary areas of physics and biology.

Covers topics on nonlinear dynamics of heart Covers topics on diagnosis of sudden cardiac death Covers topics on prediction of epilepsy seizures Covers topics on behavioural psychology

Inhalt
Data Analysis.- A Unified Approach to Attractor Reconstruction.- Multifractal Analysis of Physiological Data: A Non-Subjective Approach.- Direction of Information Flow Between Heart Rate, Blood Pressure and Breathing.- Cardiovascular Physics: Modelling.- The Mathematical Modelling of Inhomogeneities in Ventricular Tissue.- Controlling Spiral Turbulence in Simulated Cardiac Tissue by Low-Amplitude Traveling Wave Stimulation.- Suppression of Turbulent Dynamics in Models of Cardiac Tissue by Weak Local Excitations.- Synchronization Phenomena in Networks of Oscillatory and Excitable Luo-Rudy Cells.- Nonlinear Oscillations in the Conduction System of the Heart A Model.- Cardiovascular Physics: Data Analysis.- Statistical physics of human heart rate in health and disease.- Cardiovascular Dynamics Following Open Heart Surgery: Early Impairment and Potential for Recovery.- Application of Empirical Mode Decomposition to Cardiorespiratory Synchronization.- Cognitive and Neurosciences.- Brain Dynamics and Modeling in Epilepsy: Prediction and Control Studies.- An Expressive Body Language Underlies Drosophila Courtship Behavior.- Speech Rhythms in Children Learning Two Languages.- The Role of Dynamical Instabilities and Fluctuations in Hearing.- Electrical Noise in Cells, Membranes and Neurons.