Multifractal analysis of the long-range correlations in the cardiac dynamics of Drosophila melanogaster

Abstract

Time series of heartbeat activity of humans can exhibit long-range correlations. In this paper we show that such kind of correlations can exist for the heartbeat activity of much simpler species like Drosophila melanogaster. By means of the method of multifractal detrended fluctuation analysis (MFDFA) we calculate fractal spectra $f(α)$ and $h(q)$ and investigate the correlation properties of heartbeat activity of Drosophila with genetic hearth defects for three consequent generations of species. We observe that opposite to the case of humans the time series of the heartbeat activity of healtly Drosophila do not have scaling properties. Time series from flies with genetic defects can be long-range correllated and can have multifractal properties. The fractal heartbeat dynamics of Drosophila is transferred from generation to generation.