These programs derive pNNx, time domain measures of heart rate variability defined for any time interval x as the fraction of consecutive normal sinus (NN) intervals that differ by more than x. Conventionally, such measures have been applied to assess parasympathetic activity using x = 50 milliseconds (yielding the widely-cited pNN50 statistic).
This program takes as standard input an annotation interval list, containing intervals in seconds and the (beat and non-beat) annotations that terminate each interval; and outputs on standard output each unique NN increment (x) in milliseconds, and the percentage of NN interval increments (pNNx) greater than x.
Options for pnnlist may include:
This shell script invokes ann2rr(1) and pnnlist to obtain pNNx statistics using a beat annotation file as input. The input file must be specified using the -r record and -a annotator arguments.
Options for pNNx may include any of those usable with pnnlist, as well as:
These commands are functionally identical:
ann2rr -r nsrdb/16265 -a atr -A -i s8 -w | pnnlist
pNNx -r nsrdb/16265 -a atr
Each of these commands reads the atr (reference) annotations for MIT-BIH
Normal Sinus Rhythm Database (nsrdb) record 16265 (downloading them directly
from PhysioNet if the annotation file has not previously been downloaded
into a local (nsrdb). These commands will then print each unique NN interval
increment in milliseconds along with the percentage of intervals greater
than that value. Both of the examples above produce the same output; the
first few lines are shown below:
0 89.2738
7.8125 69.4564
15.625 53.3662
23.4375 40.8539
31.25 31.4265
39.0625 24.1817
46.875 18.4763
54.6875 14.1261
62.5 10.7312
70.3125 8.06025
78.125 6.09401
85.9375 4.56975
93.75 3.47841
101.562 2.66896
.
.
.
It may be necessary to set and export the shell variable WFDB (see setwfdb(1) ).
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PhysioNetUpdated 17 February 2003