Author(s)

S. Calvacanti, E. Belardinelli & S. Severi

Abstract

The baroreflex control of the heart activity is simulated by a simple math- ematical model of the short-term pressure regulation. The pressure in a Windkessel model is controlled by a nonlinear feedback driving the heart rate and the stroke volume in accordance with the characteristics of the baroreflex control. Model dynamics results high sensitive to control loop gain, whose variation within a physiological range causes the system to be- come chaotic following the typical Feigenbaum's cascade. In this condition, heart rate, pressure and flow show evident variability and heart rate power spectrum is similar to the one obtained by analysing real data. 1 Introduction Cardiovascular signals exhibit a variability which appears as a slow random fluctuation of their magnitude and frequency. In particul

Keywords