scholarly journals Point Process Temporal Structure Characterizes Electrodermal Activity

Author(s):  
Sandya Subramanian ◽  
Riccardo Barbieri ◽  
Emery N. Brown

AbstractElectrodermal activity (EDA) is a read-out of the body’s sympathetic nervous system measured as sweat-induced changes in the electrical conductance properties of the skin. There is growing interest in using EDA to track physiological conditions such as stress levels, sleep quality and emotional states. Standardized EDA data analysis methods are readily available. However, none considers two established physiological features of EDA: 1) sympathetically mediated pulsatile changes in skin sweat measured as EDA resemble an integrate-and-fire process; 2) inter-pulse interval times vary depending upon the local physiological state of the skin. Based on the anatomy and physiology that underlie feature 1, we postulate that inverse Gaussian probability models would accurately describe EDA inter-pulse intervals. Given feature 2, we postulate that under fluctuating local physiological states, the inter-pulse intervals would follow mixtures of inverse Gaussian models, that can be represented as lognormal models if the conditions favor longer intervals (heavy tails) or by gamma models if the conditions favor shorter intervals (light tails). To assess the validity of these probability models we recorded and analyzed EDA measurements in 11 healthy volunteers during 1 to 2 hours of quiet wakefulness. We assess the tail behavior of the probability models by computing their settling rates. All data series were accurately described by one or more of the models: two by inverse Gaussian models; five by lognormal models and three by gamma models. These probability models suggest a highly succinct point process framework for real-time tracking of sympathetically-mediated changes in physiological state.

2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (7) ◽  
pp. e1009099
Author(s):  
Sandya Subramanian ◽  
Patrick L. Purdon ◽  
Riccardo Barbieri ◽  
Emery N. Brown

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a direct read-out of sweat-induced changes in the skin’s electrical conductance. Sympathetically-mediated pulsatile changes in skin sweat measured as EDA resemble an integrate-and-fire process, which yields an inverse Gaussian model as the inter-pulse interval distribution. We have previously showed that the inter-pulse intervals in EDA follow an inverse Gaussian distribution. However, the statistical structure of EDA pulse amplitudes has not yet been characterized based on the physiology. Expanding upon the integrate-and-fire nature of sweat glands, we hypothesized that the amplitude of an EDA pulse is proportional to the excess volume of sweat produced compared to what is required to just reach the surface of the skin. We modeled this as the difference of two inverse Gaussian models for each pulse, one which represents the time required to produce just enough sweat to rise to the surface of the skin and one which represents the time requires to produce the actual volume of sweat. We proposed and tested a series of four simplifications of our hypothesis, ranging from a single difference of inverse Gaussians to a single simple inverse Gaussian. We also tested four additional models for comparison, including the lognormal and gamma distributions. All models were tested on EDA data from two subject cohorts, 11 healthy volunteers during 1 hour of quiet wakefulness and a different set of 11 healthy volunteers during approximately 3 hours of controlled propofol sedation. All four models represent simplifications of our hypothesis outperformed other models across all 22 subjects, as measured by Akaike’s Information Criterion (AIC), as well as mean and maximum distance from the diagonal on a quantile-quantile plot. Our broader model set of four simplifications offered a useful framework to enhance further statistical descriptions of EDA pulse amplitudes. Some of the simplifications prioritize fit near the mode of the distribution, while others prioritize fit near the tail. With this new insight, we can summarize the physiologically-relevant amplitude information in EDA with at most four parameters. Our findings establish that physiologically based probability models provide parsimonious and accurate description of temporal and amplitude characteristics in EDA.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandya Subramanian ◽  
Patrick L. Purdon ◽  
Riccardo Barbieri ◽  
Emery N. Brown

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a direct read-out of sweat-induced changes in the skin's electrical conductance. Sympathetically-mediated pulsatile changes in skin sweat measured as EDA resemble an integrate-and-fire process, which yields an inverse Gaussian model as the inter-pulse interval distribution. We have previously showed that the inter-pulse intervals in EDA follow an inverse Gaussian distribution. However, the statistical structure of EDA pulse amplitudes has not yet been characterized based on the physiology. Expanding upon the integrate-and-fire nature of sweat glands, we hypothesized that the amplitude of an EDA pulse is proportional to the excess volume of sweat produced compared to what is required to just reach the surface of the skin. We modeled this as the difference of two inverse Gaussian models for each pulse, one which represents the time required to produce just enough sweat to rise to the surface of the skin and one which represents the time requires to produce the actual volume of sweat. We proposed and tested a series of four simplifications of our hypothesis, ranging from a single difference of inverse Gaussians to a single simple inverse Gaussian. We also tested four additional models for comparison, including the lognormal and gamma distributions. All models were tested on EDA data from two subject cohorts, 11 healthy volunteers during 1 hour of quiet wakefulness and a different set of 11 healthy volunteers during approximately 3 hours of controlled propofol sedation. All four models represent simplifications of our hypothesis outperformed other models across all 22 subjects, as measured by Akaike's Information Criterion (AIC), as well as mean and maximum distance from the diagonal on a quantile-quantile plot. Our broader model set of four simplifications offered a useful framework to enhance further statistical descriptions of EDA pulse amplitudes. Some of the simplifications prioritize fit near the mode of the distribution, while others prioritize fit near the tail. With this new insight, we can summarize the physiologically-relevant amplitude information in EDA with at most four parameters. Our findings establish that physiologically based probability models provide parsimonious and accurate description of temporal and amplitude characteristics in EDA.


2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (42) ◽  
pp. 26422-26428
Author(s):  
Sandya Subramanian ◽  
Riccardo Barbieri ◽  
Emery N. Brown

Electrodermal activity (EDA) is a direct readout of the body’s sympathetic nervous system measured as sweat-induced changes in the skin’s electrical conductance. There is growing interest in using EDA to track physiological conditions such as stress levels, sleep quality, and emotional states. Standardized EDA data analysis methods are readily available. However, none considers an established physiological feature of EDA. The sympathetically mediated pulsatile changes in skin sweat measured as EDA resemble an integrate-and-fire process. An integrate-and-fire process modeled as a Gaussian random walk with drift diffusion yields an inverse Gaussian model as the interpulse interval distribution. Therefore, we chose an inverse Gaussian model as our principal probability model to characterize EDA interpulse interval distributions. To analyze deviations from the inverse Gaussian model, we considered a broader model set: the generalized inverse Gaussian distribution, which includes the inverse Gaussian and other diffusion and nondiffusion models; the lognormal distribution which has heavier tails (lower settling rates) than the inverse Gaussian; and the gamma and exponential probability distributions which have lighter tails (higher settling rates) than the inverse Gaussian. To assess the validity of these probability models we recorded and analyzed EDA measurements in 11 healthy volunteers during 1 h of quiet wakefulness. Each of the 11 time series was accurately described by an inverse Gaussian model measured by Kolmogorov–Smirnov measures. Our broader model set offered a useful framework to enhance further statistical descriptions of EDA. Our findings establish that a physiologically based inverse Gaussian probability model provides a parsimonious and accurate description of EDA.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sandya Subramanian ◽  
Patrick L. Purdon ◽  
Riccardo Barbieri ◽  
Emery N. Brown

ABSTRACTObjectiveThe goal of this work was to develop a physiology-based paradigm for pulse selection from electrodermal activity (EDA) data.MethodsWe aimed to use insight about the integrate-and-fire physiology of sweat gland bursts, which predicts inverse Gaussian inter-pulse interval structure. At the core of our paradigm is a subject-specific amplitude threshold selection process for pulses based on the statistical properties of four right-skewed models including the inverse Gaussian. These four models differ in their tail behavior, which reflects sweat gland physiology to varying degrees. By screening across thresholds and fitting all four models, we selected for heavier tails that reflect inverse Gaussian-like structure and verified the pulse selection with a goodness-of-fit analysis.ResultsWe tested our paradigm on two different subject cohorts recorded during different experimental conditions and using different equipment. In both cohorts, our method robustly and consistently recovered pulses that captured the inverse Gaussian-like structure predicted by physiology, despite large differences in noise level of the data. In contrast, an established EDA analysis paradigm, which assumes a constant amplitude threshold across all data, was unable to separate pulses from noise.ConclusionWe present a computationally efficient, statistically rigorous, and physiology-informed paradigm for pulse selection from EDA data that is robust across individuals and experimental conditions yet adaptable to changes in noise level.SignificanceThe robustness of our paradigm and its basis in physiology move EDA closer to serving as a clinical marker for sympathetic activity in diverse conditions such as pain, anxiety, depression, and sleep.


2005 ◽  
Vol 288 (1) ◽  
pp. H424-H435 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo Barbieri ◽  
Eric C. Matten ◽  
AbdulRasheed A. Alabi ◽  
Emery N. Brown

Heart rate is a vital sign, whereas heart rate variability is an important quantitative measure of cardiovascular regulation by the autonomic nervous system. Although the design of algorithms to compute heart rate and assess heart rate variability is an active area of research, none of the approaches considers the natural point-process structure of human heartbeats, and none gives instantaneous estimates of heart rate variability. We model the stochastic structure of heartbeat intervals as a history-dependent inverse Gaussian process and derive from it an explicit probability density that gives new definitions of heart rate and heart rate variability: instantaneous R-R interval and heart rate standard deviations. We estimate the time-varying parameters of the inverse Gaussian model by local maximum likelihood and assess model goodness-of-fit by Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests based on the time-rescaling theorem. We illustrate our new definitions in an analysis of human heartbeat intervals from 10 healthy subjects undergoing a tilt-table experiment. Although several studies have identified deterministic, nonlinear dynamical features in human heartbeat intervals, our analysis shows that a highly accurate description of these series at rest and in extreme physiological conditions may be given by an elementary, physiologically based, stochastic model.


1981 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helmut Albrecht

Four species of sympatric damselfishes (Eupomacentrus, Pomacentridae) from certain Florida reefs can be distinguished by certain sound characteristics used during courtship. Apparently the fish use these characteristics for species recognition. These characteristics involve the temporal structure of a sound, i.e. the length of the pulse interval, containing the necessary code for communication.


Author(s):  
Rafael Guzmán-Cabrera ◽  
Iván A. Hernández-Robles ◽  
Xiomara González Ramírez ◽  
José Rafael Guzmán Sepúlveda

Probabilistic approaches are frequently used to describe irregular activity data to assist the design and development of devices. Unfortunately, useful estimations are not always feasible due to the large noise in the data modeled, as it occurs when estimating the sea waves potential for electricity generation. In this work we propose a simple methodology based on the use of joint probability models that allow discriminating extreme values, collected from measurements as pairs of independent points, while allowing the preservation of the essential statistics of the measurements. The outcome of the proposed methodology is an equivalent data series where large-amplitude fluctuations are suppressed and, therefore, can be used for design purposes. For the evaluation of the proposed method, we used year-long databases of hourly-collected measurements of the wave’s height and period, performed at maritime buoys located in the Gulf of Mexico. These measurements are used to obtain a fluctuations-reduced representation of the energy potential of the waves that can be useful, for instance, for the design of electric generators.


2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hui Zhao ◽  
Fenglin Cao ◽  
Yonghui Gong ◽  
Huafeng Xu ◽  
Yiping Fei ◽  
...  

RNA-Seq is emerging as an increasingly important tool in biological research, and it provides the most direct evidence of the relationship between the physiological state and molecular changes in cells. A large amount of RNA-Seq data across diverse experimental conditions have been generated and deposited in public databases. However, most developed approaches for coexpression analyses focus on the coexpression pattern mining of the transcriptome, thereby ignoring the magnitude of gene differences in one pattern. Furthermore, the functional relationships of genes in one pattern, and notably among patterns, were not always recognized. In this study, we developed an integrated strategy to identify differential coexpression patterns of genes and probed the functional mechanisms of the modules. Two real datasets were used to validate the method and allow comparisons with other methods. One of the datasets was selected to illustrate the flow of a typical analysis. In summary, we present an approach to robustly detect coexpression patterns in transcriptomes and to stratify patterns according to their relative differences. Furthermore, a global relationship between patterns and biological functions was constructed. In addition, a freely accessible web toolkit “coexpression pattern mining and GO functional analysis” (COGO) was developed.


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