Noninvasive Cardiac Signal Analysis Using Data Decomposition Techniques - Modeling in Computational Biology and Biomedicine - page 78

Chapter 3
Noninvasive Cardiac Signal Analysis Using Data
Decomposition Techniques

Vicente Zarzoso, Olivier Meste, Pierre Comon, Decebal Gabriel Latcu,
and Nadir Saoudi

3.1 Preliminaries and Motivation

3.1.1 Cardiac Electrophysiology and Genesis of the

ECG Signal

The heart is one of the most important bodily organs, as it is responsible for pumping
blood to all cells of the body. Anatomically, it is divided into four chambers, two
atria and two ventricles, which work in a well coordinated fashion as an ingenious
double pump system. The left-hand side of the heart is in charge of oxygenated
blood. This comes from the lungs and enters the left atrium through the pulmonary
veins. The left ventricle then pumps it to the rest of the body through the aorta. The
right-hand side of the heart deals with deoxygenated blood, which enters the right
atrium through the caval veins and is then pumped by the right ventricle through
the pulmonary arteries towards the lungs, where it is re-oxygenated again. These
two pumping functions operate simultaneously during a cardiac beat. A schematic
diagram of the heart and the blood circulation system is shown in Fig. 3.1 .

V. Z a r z o s o ( ) · O. Meste
I3S - UMR 7271 CNRS/UNS, Algorithmes-Euclide-B, 2000 Route des Lucioles,
B.P. 121, 06903, Sophia Antipolis, France
e-mail: [e-mail] ; [e-mail]
P. C o m o n
GIPSA-Lab - UMR 5216, Grenoble Campus, B.P. 46, 38402 St Martin d'Heres, France
e-mail: [e-mail]
D.G. Latcu · N. Saoudi
Cardiology Department, Princess Grace Hospital, 1 avenue Pasteur, B.P. 489, 98012,
Monaco Cedex, France
e-mail: [e-mail] ; [e-mail]