Associations between heart rate asymmetry expression and asymmetric detrended fluctuation analysis results

The relation between recently established asymmetry in Asymmetric Detrended Fluctuation Analysis (ADFA) and Heart Rate Asymmetry is studied. It is found that the ADFA asymmetric exponents are related both to the overall variability and to its asymmetric components at all studied time scales. We find that the asymmetry in scaling exponents, i.e., alpha(+) < alpha(-) is associated with both variance-based and runs-based types of asymmetry. This observation suggests that the physiological mechanisms of both types are similar, even though their origins and mathematical methods are very different.