Hierarchical Structure in Healthy and Diseased Heart Rate Variability in Humans

It is shown that the heart rate variability (HRV) in healthy and diseased humans possesses a hierarchical structure of the She-Leveque (SL) form. This structure, first found in measurements in turbulent fluid flows, implies further details in the HRV multifractal scaling. The potential of diagnosis is also discussed based on the characteristics derived from the SL hierarchy.