Decomposition of Heartbeat Time Series: Scaling Analysis of the Sign Sequence

Abstract

The cardiac interbeat (RR) increment time series can be decomposed into two sub-sequences: a magnitude series and a sign series. We show that the sign sequence, a simple binary representation of the original RR series, retains fundamental scaling properties of the original series, is robust with respect to outliers, and may provide useful information about neuroautonomic control mechanisms.