Abstract— Aim of this study is to investigate the effects of menstrual cycle on cardiac autonomic nerve function parameters in young healthy women by means of heart rate variability (HRV). Comparative analysis has been done using linear and non linear methods of HRV for analysis of real life stress during menstrual cycle. This study considers three phases of menstrual cycle i.e. menstrual phase, luteal phase, and follicular phase. Electrocardiograms (ECG) of twenty young healthy women were recorded in all the three phases of menstrual cycle and RR intervals were then obtained. Scaling exponent alpha (α) in detrended Fluctuation Analysis (DFA) successfully distinguish the stress in three phases of menstrual cycle based on their HRV’s. In DFA mean values of scaling exponent alpha (α) are lowest in luteal phase (0.77) indicates maximum stress as compared to the menstrual phase (0.88) and follicular phase (0.86) of menstrual cycle. In contrast to DFA, linear methods of HRV i.e. standard deviation of all NN intervals (SDNN) and square root of the mean of the sum of the squares of differences between adjacent NN intervals (RMSSD) and low frequency (LF), high frequency (HF) and LF/HF ratio in frequency domain method of HRV failed to clearly distinguishes the HRV’s in all phases of menstrual cycle. And also it has been concluded that the menstrual characteristics in young women vary with autonomic nerve function.
Index Terms— Autonomic nerve function, heart rate variability, menstrual cycle, phases.
Kirti Rawal is with the Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar–144 011, Punjab, India (tel.: +91 9417955758; e-mail: nitkr1234@gmail.com).
Indu Saini is with the Electronics and Communication Engineering Department, Dr. B. R. Ambedkar National Institute of Technology, Jalandhar – 144 011, Punjab, India (e-mail: sainii@nitj.ac.in).
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Cite: K. Rawal and I. Saini, " Comparative Analysis of Measuring Heart Rate Variability during Different Phases of Menstrual Cycle in Young Healthy Women," International Journal of Information and Electronics Engineering vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 62-66, 2014.
