Is it required to remove Respiratory Influences From Heart Rate, before calculating HRV metrices? This paper , Article Unconstrained Estimation of HRV Indices After Removing Respi...
decomposed HRv signal into two different components, one respiratory component, describing all variations related to respiration, and one residual component, describing all dynamics modulated by other mechanisms different from respiration.Any thoughts? Is the traditional way of calculating HRV is wrong?
Hi Debanjan,
i would not say that the traditional way is generally wrong. The respiratory component in the RR intervals is related to the parasympathetic tone. Including it in conventional HRV analyses thus is fine. However, there might be situations where a separation is beficial. E.g. if the respiration is at a very low or very high rate, results of traditional HRV analyses might be confusing because respiration does not lie in the expected frequency band. Alos, if you have to compare situations at different respiratory pattern it might be beneficial to separate components.
Greetings, Sebastian
Dear Debanjan Borthakur,
it is important to consider the respiratory frequency for the proper interpretation of the results HRV parameters. Especially during slow breathing thing get different than expected during normal HRV assessments. High frequency (HF) oscillations of HRV are defined as the amount of oscillation in the frequency range 0.15 to 0.4 Hz, i.e. 9 to 24 breathing cylces per minute. During slow breathing the respiratory frequency may also be slower than 9 cycles per minute (e.g. 6 to 8 cycles per minute). Hence, the effect of slow breathing on heart rate modulations would then be quantified by the low frequency (HF) band of HRV (0.04 to 0.15 Hz, i.e. 2.4 to 9 breathing cycles per minute). In the case of slow breathing it does not make much sense to calculate LF/HF because it cannot be interpreted in the sense of a sympathovagal balance: LF is high caused by the vagal modulations at slow breathing whereas HF is lower because it does not capture respiratory influences anymore.
It is alway a good idea to know the respiratory frequency at least approximately because it helps to understand parameters like LF and HF and its proper physiological interpretation.
Whether it is helpful to remove the respiratory component - I don't know yet because I didn't try it myself yet. But I think it is the same reasoning as before: if you know the (approximate) respiratory frequency it is helpful for the proper interpretation of the results because you then know what information has been cancelled out during the process of HRV calculations.
Articles pointing at the impoartance of respiratory frequency for the proper interpretation of HRV parameters:
- Javorka M et al. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 2018 314(6): R761-R769 https://doi.org/10.1152/ajpregu.00430.2017
- Comment: Baumert M et al. Sleep Med 2016 23: 125 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sleep.2015.07.015
Articles also dealing with respirtory influences on HRV:
- Rosenblum M et al. Philos Trans A Math Phys Eng Sci 2019 377(2160): 20190045 https://doi.org/10.1098/rsta.2019.0045
- Topcu C et al. Physiol Meas 2018 39(5): 054002 https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6579/aabea4
All the best,
Dirk
Dear Debanjan Borthakur,
You can find more details about this important issue also in following articles, but Dr Cysarz pointed out the most important points.
To answer on your question - it seems that it is not 'required' to remove respiratory influences from HR, before calculating HRV parameters, but it could provide some new insight into the topic.
In population with known fast or slow respiratory rate (children or athletes), respiratory depth, and frequency are particularly associated with heart rate and its fluctuations and may influence HRV data independently of cardiac autonomic activity.
Bruce, E. N. (1996). Temporal variations in the pattern of breathing. J. Appl. Physiol. 80, 1079–1087.
Quintana, D. S., Alvares, G. A., and Heathers, J. A. (2016). Guidelines for Reporting Articles on Psychiatry and Heart rate variability (GRAPH): recommendations to advance research communication. Transl. Psychiatry. 6:e803.
Quintana, D. S., and Heathers, J. A. (2014). Considerations in the assessment of heart rate variability in biobehavioral research. Front. Psychol. 5:805.
Grossman P, Taylor EW. Toward understanding respiratory sinus arrhythmia: relations to cardiac vagal tone, evolution and biobehavioral functions. Biol Psychol. 2007 Feb;74(2):263-85.
Shaffer F, Ginsberg JP. (2017). An overview of heart rate variability metrics and norms. Front. Public Health 5:258.
Laborde, S., Mosley, E., and Thayer, J. F. (2017). Heart rate variability and cardiac vagal tone in psychophysiological research - recommendations for experiment planning, data analysis, and data reporting. Front. Psychol. 8:213.
All the best,
Jakub
I would agree with Sebastian and Dirk based on my limited knowledge. I've asked a few physiologists and cardiologists a related question: how do you evaluate HRV in different species that don't breathe with similar patterns.
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