KARDIA: A Matlab software for the analysis of cardiac interbeat intervals

This article presents KARDIA, a Matlab (MathWorks Inc., MA) software developed for the analysis of cardiac interbeat interval (IBI) data. Available functions are called through a graphical user interface and permit the study of phasic cardiac responses (PCRs) and the estimation of time and frequency domain heart rate variability (HRV) parameters. Scaling exponents of heartbeat fluctuations are calculated with the detrended fluctuation analysis (DFA) algorithm. Grand average and individual subject results can be exported to spreadsheets for further statistical analysis. KARDIA is distributed free of charge under the terms of GNU public license so that other users can modify the code and adjust the program’s performance according to their own scientific requirements.