The resting-state pulse-respiration quotient of humans: lognormally distributed and centred around a value of four.

摘要

The pulse-respiration quotient (heart rate divided by therespiration rate, PRQ = HR/RR) is a parameter capturing thecomplex state of cardiorespiratory interactions. We analysed482 single PRQ values obtained from measurement on134 healthy adult subjects (49 men, 85 women, age: 24.7 ± 3.4,range: 20–46 years) during rest. We found that the distributionof PRQ values (i) has a global maximum at around a value of 4(median: 4.19) and (ii) follows a lognormal distribution function.A multimodality of the distribution, associated with several PRQattractor states was not detected by our group-level basedanalysis. In , our analysis shows that in healthy humansthe resting-state PRQ is around 4 and lognormally distributed.This finding supports claims about the special role of the 4 to 1cardiorespiratory coupling in particular and the PRQ in general forphysiological and medical views and applications. To the best ofour knowledge, our study is the largest conducted so far inhealthy adult humans about reference values of the PRQ duringa resting-state at day.