Introduction to complex cardiovascular physiology

Abstract

This chapter aims at providing a brief overview of the main aspects in cardiovascular physiology that have encouraged and justified the use of advanced nonlinear signal processing methodologies for the study of the cardiovascular system. This system, in fact, constantly adapts to changes in internal and external conditions to maintain blood pressure homeostasis through complex and dynamic feedback mechanisms that simultaneously affect several processes such as heart rate, cardiac output, blood pressure, respiration, peripheral resistance etc. Therefore, there is a need for nonlinear, non-stationary, and multivariate approaches to assess cardiovascular interactions and their causal structure in health and disease.