[Heart rate fluctuations in the horse at rest: (1) Investigation of heart rate changes by spectrum analysis].

The heart rate fluctuations at rest were studied in order to explore the emotionality of the horses by isolating the influence of the autonomic control. This paper presents a method of spectral analysis which was used to analyse the heart rate variability in the frequency domain. The heartbeat intervals were recorded during 1 h and a series of 1,024 heartbeats was extracted to compute a power spectrum of density. This was obtained by calculating the Fourier transform of the autocorrelation function of the series. This spectral analysis was applied to heart rate recordings in order to illustrate its sensitivity. The normal heart rate fluctuations at rest were compared with those obtained after atropine and atropine+adrenaline injections. The normal power spectrum revealed several low frequency components (< 0.1 cycle/beat). The atropine injection reduced heart rate variability while the atropine+adrenaline injection increased the power of low frequency fluctuations.