Comparison of pulse rate variability from post-auricula and heart rate variability during different body states for healthy subjects

Heart rate variability (HRV) extracted from the electrocardiogram (ECG) is an essential indicator for assessing the autonomic nervous system in clinical. Some scholars have studied the feasibility of pulse rate variability (PRV) instead of HRV. However, there is little qualitative research in different body states. In this paper, the photoplethysmography (PPG) of postauricular and finger and the ECG of fifteen subjects were synchronously collected for comparative analysis. The eleven experiments were designed according to the daily living state, including the stationary state, limb movement state, and facial movement state. The substitutability of nine variables was investigated in the time, frequency, and nonlinearity domain by Passing Bablok regression and Bland Altman analysis. The results showed that the PPG of the finger was destroyed in the limb movement state. There were six variables of postauricular PRV, which showed a positive linear relationship and good agreement (p > 0.05, ratio ≤0.2) with HRV in all experiments. Our study suggests that the postauricular PPG could retain the necessary information of the pulse signal under the limb movement state and facial movement state. Therefore, postauricular PPG could be a better substitute for HRV, daily PPG detection, and mobile health than finger PPG.