Stationarity breaking in coupled physical systems revealed by recurrence analysis

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that recurrence quantifier, determinism, can detect stationarity breaking and coupling in physical systems, including physiological data, revealing insights into sleep micro arousals and inter-regional brain interactions.

Contribution

It introduces a novel application of recurrence quantifiers to detect coupling and stationarity breaking in coupled systems and physiological data, advancing non-invasive analysis methods.

Findings

Recurrence quantifier detects stationarity breaking in coupled systems.

Method reveals coupling between hippocampus and motor areas in mice.

Detects micro arousals in sleep from accelerometer data.

Abstract

In this letter we explore how recurrence quantifier, the determinism ($\Delta$), can reveal stationarity breaking and coupling between physical systems. We demonstrate that it is possible to detect small variations in a dynamical system based only on temporal signal displayed by another system coupled to it. To introduce basic ideas, we consider a well known dynamical system composed of two master-slave coupled Lorenz oscillators. We start evidencing that due to the sensitivity of $\Delta$ computed from temporal time series of slave oscillator, its is possible to detect the stationary breaking imposed in the master oscillator. As a second example, the method is carried out in a real physiological data acquired from accelerometer sensors ($\mathrm{A_{cc}}$) and used to detect micro arousal phenomenology (described by a sharp burst in $\mathrm{A_{cc}}$ signal) during sleep periods in mice. Moreover, we show for the first time that making use of recurrence quantifier it is possible to infer a coupling between electric signals from hippocampus and "locomotor brain areas" of mice, based only on non invasive data from $\mathrm{A_{cc}}$. Our results suggest new possibilities of analysis of coupled systems making use of accessible time series. Our second example supports an interpretation of an internal coupling detectable as a stationarity breaking in $\mathrm{A_{cc}}$ that occurs some seconds before micro arousal processes during sleep periods in rodents, contributing to the idea that micro arousals are elements of sleep taking part in the regulation of sleep process. Such a characterization of micro arousals can improve our knowledge about sleep fostering tools of sleep diagnose and pharmacology research for mammals in general.