Point Process Heart Rate Variability Assessment during Sleep Deprivation

To investigate the potential relationships between Heart Rate Variability (HRV) and objective performance-subjective alertness measures during sleep deprivation, a novel point process algorithm was applied to ECG data from healthy young subjects in a 52-hour Constant Routine protocol that includes sleep deprivation. Our algorithm is able to estimate the time-varying behavior of the HRV spectral indexes in an on-line instantaneous method. Results demonstrate the ability of our framework to provide high time-resolution sympatho-vagal dynamics as measured by spectral low frequency (LF) and high frequency (HF) power. Correlation analysis on individual subjects reveals a relevant correspondence between LF/HF and subjective alertness during the initial hours of sleep deprivation. At longer times awake, high correlation levels between LF/HF and objective performance indicate an increasing sympathetic drive as performance measures worsen. These results suggest that our point-process based HRV assessment could aid in real-time prediction of performance-alertness.