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Diploma Thesis: Cardiorespiratory System

The diploma thesis with title "Quantitative Analysis of the Cardiorespiratory System during Paced Respiration" results from a cooperation between the Max Schaldach-Stiftungsprofessur for Biomedical Engineering of the Friedrich-Alexander-University Erlangen-Nürnberg and the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) in the METEAN (Medical Technology Test and Demonstration Center).

In this thesis the interaction between the respiratory and the cardiovascular system was investigated such as respiratory sinus arrhythmia. Respiratory sinus arrhythmia is the breath-synchronous variation of the heartbeat and is defined as the difference between the maximum and minimum RR interval within one breath.

The basis of this work was a clinical trial in which 25 volunteers participated and passed through a dedicated test protocol that includes different tests such as a metronomic breathing part, an orthostatic maneuvre, a mental stress test (the Stroop test), the Valsalva maneuvre and a spiroergometry part.

The aim of this work was to evaluate and review existing studies about respiratory sinus arrhythmia with special respect to data gained under paced respiration where the volunteers were asked to breath rhythmically with breathing frequencies from 4 to 25 breaths per minute. Further, differences between metronomic breathing and phases without prescribed breathing protocol such as during rest or under physical stress were searched. Therefore phase relationships between respiratory flow and RR intervals or the amplitude of RSA were examined.