Increased plasma pro-inflammatory cytokine concentrations after myocardial infarction and the presence of depression during next 6-months.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to investigate plasma concentrations of four pro-inflammatory cytokines (IL17a, IL6, TNFα and IL12p70) in patients with myocardial infarction and to analyse them according to presence of depression observed during first 6 months after myocardial infarction.

Methods: In 44 patients with the first acute STEMI (ST segment elevation myocardial infarction) plasma levels of IL17a, IL6, TNFα and IL12p70 were measured on the 3rd and 5th day after the MI. Cytokine concentrations were analyzed according to the presence of depression during 6 months of observation.

Complexity of the heart rhythm after heart transplantation by entropy of transition network for RR-increments of RR time intervals between heartbeats.

Network models have been used to capture, represent and analyse characteristics of living organisms and general properties of complex systems. The use of network representations in the characterization of time series complexity is a relatively new but quickly developing branch of time series analysis. In particular, beat-to-beat heart rate variability can be mapped out in a network of RR-increments, which is a directed and weighted graph with vertices representing RR-increments and the edges of which correspond to subsequent increments.

Aging in autonomic control by multifractal studies of cardiac interbeat intervals in the VLF band.

The heart rate responds dynamically to various intrinsic and environmental stimuli. The autonomic nervous system is said to play a major role in this response. Multifractal analysis offers a novel method to assess the response of cardiac interbeat intervals.

Comparison of wavelet transform modulus maxima and multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis of heart rate in patients with systolic dysfunction of left ventricle.

Background: In recent years the WTMM (wavelet transform modulus maxima) and MDFA (multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis) methods have become widely used techniques for the determination of nonlinear, multifractal heart rate (HR) dynamics. The purpose of our study was to compare multifractal parameters of heart rate calculated using both methods in a group of 90 patients with reduced left ventricular systolic function (rlvs group) and in a group of 39 healthy persons (nsr group).

Methods: For each subject from the rlvs group (LVEF < or =40%) and the nsr group, a 24-hour ECG Holter monitoring was performed.

Sympathetic neural responses to coronary occlusion during balloon angioplasty.

Objective: The sympathetic nervous system is a key modulator of prognosis and outcome in cardiac ischaemia and infarction. The effects of acute cardiac ischaemia on sympathetic neural traffic in humans are unknown. We tested the hypothesis that angioplasty, and associated transient myocardial ischaemia, elicits changes in neural circulatory control, including direct intraneural measures of sympathetic traffic.