August 12, 2016 at 12:00 p.m. Gaetano Valenza, M.Eng., Ph.D., will be presenting “Time-varying Nonlinear Models of Human Heartbeat Dynamics”.
Speaker: Dr. Gaetano Valenza
Assistant Professor, University of Pisa
Harvard Medical School/MGH, Boston, USA
Day & Time: Friday, August 12, 2016
12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Location: UC-Lecture Theater (Basement)
Toronto Rehab – University Centre
550 University Ave., Toronto, M5G 2A2
Contact: Azadeh Yadollahi
For Registration: https://meetings.vtools.ieee.org/m/40511
Abstract: The application of nonlinear and time-variant systems theory to physiology and medicine has provided meaningful information for a wide range of biological processes and their disease-related aberrations. However, focusing on the cardiovascular system, information that can be extracted by quantifying second-order moments of time-varying heartbeat dynamics are often neglected. To this extent, we introduce a mathematical framework including instantaneous estimates defined in the time and frequency domains, as well as instantaneous complexity and higher-order statistics. Results from exemplary studies involving healthy subjects, as well as patients with Congestive Heart Failure, Major Depression Disorder, Parkinson’s Disease, and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder will be presented. Multivariate analysis involving brain dynamics during visual affective elicitation will also be presented.
Biography: Gaetano Valenza, M.Eng., Ph.D., is currently an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy. In 2009, He started working at the Bioengineering and Robotics Research Centre “E. Piaggio” in Pisa and, in 2011, He joined the Neuro-Cardiovascular Signal Processing unit within the Neuroscience Statistics Research Laboratory at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. In 2013, He received the Ph.D. degree in Automation, Robotics, and Bioengineering from the University of Pisa and, in the same year, was appointed as a Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School/ Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, USA.
His research interests include statistical and nonlinear biomedical signal and image processing, cardiovascular and neural modeling, and wearable systems for physiological monitoring. Application of his research include the assessment of autonomic nervous system activity on cardiovascular control, brain-heart interactions, affective computing, assessment of mood and mental disorders, and disorder of consciousness.
He is author of more than 100 international scientific contributions in these fields published in peer-reviewed international journals, conference proceedings, books and book chapters, and is official reviewer of more than fifty international scientific journals. He has been involved in several international research projects, and currently is the scientific co-coordinator of the European collaborative project H2020-PHC-2015-689691-NEVERMIND. Dr. Valenza has been guest editor of several international scientific journals, and is currently member of the editorial board of the Nature’s journal “Scientific Reports”.