Authors: Germaine Cornelissen, Yoshihiko Watanabe, Larry A Beaty, Chase Turner A, Robert Sothern, Jarmila Siegelova, Tamara Breus, Denis Gubin, Abdullah A al-Abdulgader, Rollin McCraty, Kuniaki Otsuka.
Assessing influences of space weather on human physiology often relies on correlations between the socio-biological variable and the environment. One major pitfall of such an approach is the disregard for periodicities characterizing both biology and nature, many of them shared between the two systems. Alternative, more robust analytical techniques of time series analysis, such as those used in chronobiology, are better suited to avoid spurious results. Blood pressure and heart rate are highly variable along several time scales, ranging from the fast oscillations of the brain and heart to the multi-decadal cycles associated with changes in solar activity. Since these variables can be easily monitored longitudinally, they lend themselves well to the study of helio-geomagnetic effects from a basic science viewpoint. At the same time, such physiological monitoring offers useful clinical applications.
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