A comparative study of pulse rate variability and heart rate variability in healthy subjects

Abstract

Both heart rate variability (HRV) and pulse rate variability (PRV) are noninvasive means for the assessment of autonomic nervous control of the heart. However, it is not settled whether or not the PRV obtained from either hand can be the surrogate of HRV. The HRV measures obtained from electrocardiographic signals and the PRV measures obtained from the pulse waves recorded from the index fingers of both hands were compared in normal subjects by using linear regression analysis and Bland and Altman method. Highly significant correlations (P < 0.001, 0.89 < r < 1.0) were found between all HRV measures and the corresponding PRV measures of both hands. However, there were insufficient agreements in some measures between pairwise comparisons among HRV, right PRV and left PRV except heart rate and ultra-low frequency power (ULFP). The PRV of either hand is close to, but not the same as the HRV in healthy subjects. The HRV, right PRV and left PRV are not surrogates of one another in normal subjects except heart rate and ULFP. Since HRV is generally accepted as the standard method for the assessment of the autonomic nervous modulation of a subject, the PRV of either hand may not be suitable for the assessment of the cardiac autonomic nervous modulation of the subject.

Comparison of foot finding methods for deriving instantaneous pulse rates from photoplethysmographic signals

“…PRV analysis has been performed in multiple studies using PPG signals recorded from the finger or earlobe and report varying levels of accuracy compared to HRV (2,4,5,7,8,15,21). By comparison to ECG signals, PPG waveforms are characteristically smooth and do not contain a clearly defined and detectable 'landmark' feature.…”

A common neural substrate for elevated PTSD symptoms and reduced pulse rate variability in combat-exposed veterans

“…We assessed PRV using pulse oximetry due to the difficulty of collecting electrocardiography data in the MRI environment. Although PRV and HRV are highly correlated, particularly at rest (Hayano et al, 2005;Schäfer & Vagedes, 2013), the two measures rely on distinct physiological readouts of cardiac function and PRV may be less accurate for the measurement of high-frequency variability in particular (Wong et al, 2012). Much of the extant literature on PTSD and cardiac autonomic control assesses HRV and not PRV, (although some published "HRV" studies in fact utilize photoplethysmography; e.g., Minassian et al, 2015), and caution is warranted in generalizing the current results to the HRV literature until PRV is better established as an index of regulatory control and psychopathology.…”

Sternal pulse rate variability compared with heart rate variabilit on healthy subjects

“…Lu et al [9] have shown that PRV obtained from a finger can be used as surrogate for HRV. However, Wong et al [7] reported the opposite finding and reported that it could be due to the pulse wave modification in the arterial system. Constant and colleagues [10] conducted a study on pulse wave recordings on the 3rd finger of the right hand, and showed that the PRV did not precisely reflect HRV in healthy subjects.…”

“…The morphology of the PPG signal is useful for the study of autonomic control of the peripheral vascular tone [5]. In fact, Wong et al [7] reported that the PPG signal might have an additional information in regards to cardiac autonomic tone compared to the ECG, because the peripheral vasculature is also modulated by the ANS. The physiological information derived from the R-R intervals can also be derived from the pulse-to-pulse (P-P) intervals of the PPG signal.…”