Long-range scaling behaviours of human colonic pressure activities

Abstract

The long-range scaling behaviours of human colonic pressure activities under normal physiological conditions are studied by using the method of detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA). The DFA is an effective period representation with a single quantitative scaling exponent α to accurately quantify long-range correlations naturally presented in a complex non-stationary time series. The method shows that the colonic activities of the healthy subjects exhibit long-range power-law correlations; however such correlations either will be destroyed if we randomly shuffle the original data or will cease to be of a power-law form if we chop some high-amplitude spikes off. These facts indicate that the colonic tissue or enteric nervous system (ENS) with a good functional motility has a good memory to its past behaviours and generates well-organized colonic spikes; however such good memory becomes too long to be remembered for the colonic activity of the slow transit constipation (STC) patient and colonic dysmotility occurs.