Basic cardiovascular variability signals: mutual directed interactions explored in the information domain.

The study of short-term cardiovascular interactions is classically performed through the bivariate analysis of the interactions between the beat-to-beat variability of heart period (RR interval from the ECG) and systolic blood pressure (SBP). Recent progress in the development of multivariate time series analysis methods is making it possible to explore how directed interactions between two signals change in the context of networks including other coupled signals. Exploiting these advances, the present study aims at assessing directional cardiovascular interactions among the basic variability signals of RR, SBP and diastolic blood pressure (DBP), using an approach which allows direct compar…