Best parameters of heart rate variability for assessing autonomic responses to brief rectal distention in patients with irritable bowel syndrome

Study Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify the most suitable HRV parameters for ANS activity in response to brief rectal distension (RD) in patients with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

Data Collection: This dataset contains ECG recordings and HRV analysis for the IBS patients during baseline and repetitive sessions of rectal distension

Primary Conclusion: Sympathetic Index (SI) is the best HRV parameter for Sympathetic autonomic activity while SDNN was found to be the best parasympathetic HRV parameter.

Curator's Notes

Experimental Design: This dataset contains the ECG recordings for 22 IBS patients recorded for 15 min during the baseline followed by the insertion of the barostat catheter; rectal distention was performed at different pressures from 5 mmHg to the maximum tolerable pressure with an increment of 5mmHg. Each distension lasted for 30 seconds and was followed by a 30-second rest period when the balloon was deflated. Each participant was asked to score the RD-induced pain on visual analog scale at each distension pressure point. The ECG was recorded throughout the procedure. The Heart Rate Variability parameters were calculated for each step.

Completeness: This dataset is complete.

Subjects & Samples: Male (n=3) and female (n=19) human participants was involved in this study.

Primary vs derivative data: Primary data is first organized by subject ID and then by performance subfolders. Each perf- subfolder contains data from individual ECG recordings and HRV analysis for IBS patients during baseline and repetitive sessions of rectal distension, both with and without electrical stimulation treatments. The file List1-22.xlsx, which contains the sequence of treatments for each patient across all visits, can be found in the “docs” folder. There is no derivative data folder.

Code Availability: The code folder contains the internally developed MATLAB code HRV_Heal_Study.m. This file includes an executable application that calculates HRV parameters from ECG recordings.