Post-Ictal Heart Rate Oscillations in Partial Epilepsy

@article{pollard_physionet_2026, title = {{PhysioNet} as a global platform for biomedical research}, volume = {1}, issn = {3005-0693}, url = {https://doi.org/10.1038/s44360-026-00096-z}, doi = {10.1038/s44360-026-00096-z}, abstract = {Twenty-five years after its first public repository was established, the PhysioNet resource for biomedical and clinical data has enabled tens of thousands of research papers. Further efforts are ongoing to advance secure data sharing, community engagement and scalable research infrastructure.}, number = {8}, journal = {Nature Health}, author = {Pollard, Tom and Moody, Benjamin E. and Lehman, Li-wei H. and Gow, Brian J. and Fernandes, Chrystinne and Xie, Chen and Johnson, Alistair and Mark, Roger G. and Heldt, Thomas}, month = aug, year = {2026}, pages = {792--795},}

Introduction

This database contains “post-ictal heart rate oscillations in a heterogeneous group of patients with partial epilepsy.

Data Description

This pattern is marked by the appearance of transient but prominent low-frequency heart rate oscillations (0.01 - 0.1 Hz) immediately following five of 11 seizures recorded in five patients. This finding may be a marker of neuroautonomic instability, and, therefore, may have implications for understanding perturbations of heart rate control associated with partial seizures.”

The annotated ECG recordings on which this study was based may be downloaded from this page. Each recording consists of a (text) header file (with suffix .hea), a (binary) signal file (with suffix .dat), and a (binary) annotation file (with suffix .ari); these files may be read using the WFDB software package. The text file times.seize indicates the intervals of the seizure in each recording, based on simultaneously recorded EEGs (not available).