Analysis of Heart Rate Variability to Understand the Immediate Effect of Smoking on the Autonomic Nervous System Activity

Over the past few decades, the heart rate variability (HRV) analysis has gained importance as a noninvasive technique for understanding the autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity. The work presented in this paper aims to identify the immediate change in the ANS activity because of smoking using HRV analysis. The ECG signals were collected from 17 male volunteers before and after smoking. The RR intervals (RRIs) were extracted and subjected to HRV analysis, resulting in the extraction of 29 HRV parameters. Both linear and nonlinear methods were employed to detect the statistically important HRV parameters. The interpretation of the statistically important features suggested that smoking reduced the parasympathetic activity, thereby suggesting the alteration in the ANS activity. ANN classification of the statistically significant HRV parameters with accuracies ≥90% further evinced the alteration in the ANS activity.