The UNICA sleep HRV analysis tool: an integrated open-source tool for heart rate variability analysis during sleep

作     者：Sattar, Parisa Baldazzi, Giulia Puligheddu, Monica Pani, Danilo 

作者机构：Univ Cagliari Dept Biomed Sci Neurosci PhD program Cagliari Italy Univ Cagliari Dept Elect & Elect Engn MeDSP Lab Cagliari Italy Univ Cagliari Interdept Sleep Disorder Res Ctr Cagliari Italy Azienda Osped Univ Cagliari Cagliari Italy 

出 版 物：《PHYSIOLOGICAL MEASUREMENT》 (Physiol. Meas.)

年 卷 期：2025年第46卷第1期

页      面：2025 Jan 15页

核心收录：

学科分类：0831[工学-生物医学工程（可授工学、理学、医学学位）] 0710[理学-生物学] 1001[医学-基础医学(可授医学、理学学位)] 10[医学] 

基　　金：Ministero dell'Universite della Ricercahttp://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100021856 [CUP F21B21004970007] Italian Ministry of University and Research [2022LSSAK7, 978, 3-7-2023] Italian Ministery of University European Union [PNRR-M4C2-I1.3, PE_00000019, CUP F53C22000750006] 

主　　题：heart rate variability hypnogram sleep phases polysomnography tool 

摘      要：Heart rate variability (HRV) analysis during sleep plays a key role for understanding autonomic nervous system function and assessing cardiovascular health. The UNICA Sleep HRV analysis (UNICA-HRV) tool is a novel, open-source MATLAB tool designed to fill the gap in current HRV analysis tools. In particular, the integration of ECG and HRV data with hypnogram information, which illustrates the progression through the different sleep stages, eases the computation of HRV metrics in polysomnographic recordings. This integration is crucial for accurate phase-specific analysis, as autonomic regulation changes markedly across different sleep stages. The tool supports single- and multiple-subject analyses and is tailored to enhance usability and accessibility for researchers and clinicians without requiring extensive technical expertise. It implements and supports a variety of data inputs and configurations, allowing for flexible, detailed HRV analyses across sleep stages, employing classical and advanced metrics, such as time-domain, frequency-domain, non-linear, complexity, and Poincar & eacute;plot indexes. Validation of the tool against established tools like Kubios and PhysioZoo indicates its robustness and precision in generating reliable HRV metrics, that are essential not only for sleep research, but also for clinical diagnostics. The introduction of UNICA-HRV represents a significant simplification for sleep studies, and its open-source nature (licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License) allows to easily extend the functionality to other needs.