Dr David Western

Dr David Western

Health tech researcher based at UWE Bristol's Health Tech Hub; Specialist in AI, physiological sensing, and movement analysis; Leader of REACH research group.

PhD Project - Biolectric Signal Processing to Infer Nervous Control of the Human Heart (2008-2012)

Project Summary

This project aimed to understand how mental and emotional stress impacts cardiac function, particularly regarding heart rhythm stability, blood pressure changes, and broader autonomic coordination. Using film clips as controlled emotional triggers, we monitored cardiac patients undergoing routine catheterization, observing direct cardiac muscle responses via ventricular electrodes. Our findings highlighted how intense emotional stimuli could destabilize heart rhythms, posing potential risks to individuals with compromised cardiac health.

Supervisor: Dr. Ben Hanson - UCL Mechanical Engineering

Link to Thesis

  1. Western, D., Hanson, B. and Taggart, P. (2015) Measurement Bias in Activation-Recovery Intervals from Unipolar Electrograms. American Journal of Physiology - Heart and Circulatory Physiology [online]. 308 (4), pp. H331–H338.
  2. Reinecke, A., Filippini, N., Berna, C., Western, D., Hanson, B., Cooper, M.J., Taggart, P. and Harmer, C.J. (2015) Effective emotion regulation strategies improve fMRI and ECG markers of psychopathology in panic disorder: implications for psychological treatment action. Translational Psychiatry [online]. 5 (11), p. e673.
  3. Child, N. et al. (2014) Effect of Mental Challenge Induced by Movie Clips on Action Potential Duration in Normal Human Subjects Independent of Heart Rate. Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology [online]. 7 (3), pp. 518–523.
  4. Western, D., Hanson, B. and Taggart, P. (2014) Cardiac Unipolar Electrograms: Practical Insights from Analytic Modelling. Bioengineering14. London, UK. London, UK.
  5. Di Simplicio, M., Costoloni, G.,Western, D., Hanson, B., Taggart, P. and Harmer, C.J. (2012) Decreased Heart Rate Variability during Emotion Regulation in Subjects at Risk for Psychopathology. Psychological medicine [online]. 42 (8), pp. 1775–1783.
  6. Hanson, B., Gill, J., Western, D., Gilbey, M., Bostock, J., Boyett, M., Zhang, H., Coronel, R. and Taggart, P. (2012) Cyclical modulation of human ventricular repolarization by respiration. Frontiers in Physiology [online]. 3. Available from: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2012.00379 [Accessed 13 January 2024].
  7. Western, D., Taggart, P. and Hanson, B. (2010) Real-Time Feedback of Dynamic Cardiac Repolarization Properties. 2010 Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology [online]2010 32nd Annual International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society (EMBC). Buenos Aires, Argentina. Buenos Aires, Argentina, pp. 114–117. Available from: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=5626087 [Accessed 11 January 2011].

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