Development of a Matlab software for analysis of heart rate variability

The analysis of heart rate variability (HRV) signals is an important tool for studying the autonomic nervous system, as it allows the evaluation of the balance between the sympathetic and parasympathetic influences on heart rhythm. This paper presents a tool for analysis of HRV called ECGLab, which was developed in Matlab language in order to help research on HRV by making the analysis process faster and easier. The software obtains the HRV signal by using an automatic QRS detection algorithm. The user can inspect the ECG and correct mistakes in the detection process, and also identify ectopic beats. Importing RR intervals from previously typed ASCII files is also possible. Some of the most popular HRV analysis techniques were implemented: statistical and time series analysis, spectral analysis (using FFT, autoregressive and Lomb methods), Poincare plot analysis and sequential trend analysis.