According to the nonlinear theory, the experiments have been conducted on sample ECG (electrocardiogram) signals of healthy human beings, coronary heart disease patients and adult canines. On the basis of the analyses of the power spectra, the computation of the correlation dimension and the Lyapunov exponent to a large number of ECG signals, the following conclusions are shown: through the comparative research, (1) the analyses of the power spectra, the computation of the correlation dimension and the Lyapunov exponent to the ECG signals reflect the whole dynamic characteristics of the hearts, and they may become a new method of researching ECG quantitatively to an early diagnose of heart disease. (2) Under normal physiological conditions the cardiac activities are chaotic, while under pathologic conditions the cardiac activities approach regularity. (3) On the basis of the comparative research of human beings and canines, it is revealed that chaos may be a quantitative index to measure the evolution
WANG XingyuanSchool of Electronic and Information Engineering, Dalian University of Technology, Dalian 116024, China
