Heart rate variability: a noninvasive electrocardiographic method to measure the autonomic nervous system

The autonomic nervous system (ANS) plays an important role not only in physiological situations, but also in various pathological settings such as diabetic neuropathy, myocardial infarction (MI) and congestive heart failure (CHF). Autonomic imbalance associating increased sympathetic activity and reduced vagal tone has been been strongly implicated in the pathophysiology of arrhythmogenesis and sudden cardiac death. Among the different available...