Related Experiment Video
Updated: Dec 28, 2025
Estimating Bilateral Atrial Function by Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Feature Tracking in Patients with Paroxysmal Atrial Fibrillation
Published on: July 20, 2022
Short-term reproducibility of parameters characterizing atrial fibrillatory waves
Mikael Henriksson1, Arcadi García-Alberola2, Leif Sörnmo1
1Department of Biomedical Engineering and Center of Integrative Electrocardiology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
Objective:
To study reproducibility of f-wave parameters in terms of inter- and intrapatient variation.
Approach:
Five parameters are investigated: dominant atrial frequency (DAF), f-wave amplitude, phase dispersion, spectral organization, and spatiotemporal variability. For each parameter, the variance ratio R, defined as the ratio between inter- and intrapatient variance, is computed; a larger R corresponds to better stability and reproducibility. The study population consists of 20 high-quality ECGs recorded from patients with atrial fibrillation (11/9 paroxysmal/persistent).
Main Results:
The well-established parameters DAF and f-wave amplitude were associated with considerably larger R-values (13.1 and 21.0, respectively) than phase dispersion (2.4), spectral organization (2.4), and spatiotemporal variability (2.7). The use of an adaptive harmonic frequency tracker to estimate the DAF resulted in a larger R (13.1) than did block-based maximum likelihood estimation (6.3).
Significance:
This study demonstrates a noticeable difference in reproducibility among f-wave parameters, a result which should be taken into account when performing f-wave analysis.
Related Concept Videos
01:29Dysrhythmias III: Characteristics of Dysrhythmias
01:25Correlation between ECG and Cardiac Cycle
A cardiac action potential originates in the SA node and spreads throughout the atria and the AV node in approximately 0.03 seconds. This results in the P wave in an ECG and triggers atrial contraction. The action potential is then briefly slowed at the AV node, allowing the atria to contract and fill the ventricles with blood before...
01:18Dysrhythmias IV: Characteristics of Bradyarrhythmias
01:28Electrocardiogram Fundamentals
An electrocardiogram (ECG) is a diagnostic tool for identifying cardiac conditions such as arrhythmias, conduction abnormalities, and myocardial ischemia.
Definition
An electrocardiogram (ECG) visualizes the heart's electrical activity by tracing the electrical movement associated with each heartbeat on a graph or monitor. As the heart beats, an electrical wave passes through it, correlating with the cardiac cycle events.
Parts of an ECG
An ECG utilizes electrodes on the skin...
01:25ECG Interpretation of Arrhythmias II: Atrial, Junctional and Ventricular Arrhythmias