Federica Landreani

• Biomedical Engineer
• PhD Student at Politecnico di Milano

Virtual reality (VR) headsets, with embedded micro-electromechanical systems, have the potential to assess the mechanical heart’s functionality and respiratory activity in a non-intrusive way and without additional sensors by utilizing the ballistocardiographic principle. To test the feasibility of this approach for opportunistic physiological moni...

Head-down bed rest (HDBR) reproduces the cardiovascular effects of microgravity. We tested the hypothesis that regular high-intensity physical exercise (JUMP) could prevent this cardiovascular deconditioning, which could be detected using seismocardiography (SCG) and ballistocardiography (BCG). 23 healthy males were exposed to 60-day HDBR: 12 in a...

Purpose: Prolonged weightlessness exposure generates cardiovascular deconditioning, with potential implications on ECG circadian rhythms. Head-down (- 6°) tilt (HDT) bed rest is a ground-based analogue model for simulating the effects of reduced motor activity and fluids redistribution occurring during spaceflight. Our aim was to evaluate the impa...

Ventricular arrhythmias and sudden cardiac death during long-term space missions are a major concern for space agencies. Long-duration spaceflight and its ground-based analog head-down bed rest (HDBR) have been reported to markedly alter autonomic and cardiac functioning, particularly affecting ventricular repolarization of the electrocardiogram (E...

Objective: To assess the effects of different durations of simulated microgravity exposure on ventricular repolarization (VR) in terms of T-wave alternans (TWA) as well as to test whether an increase in VR heterogeneity could be detected once normal gravity was restored. Approach: A total of 63 healthy volunteers were recruited in several head-d...

Aims Prolonged immobilization generates cardiac deconditioning, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, and efficient countermeasures (CM) are needed to prevent it. Our aim was to assess by Cine-MRI the effects of long-term strict head-down (−6 degrees) bed-rest (BR) deconditioning, and the effectiveness of high-intensity jump training CM, on lef...

Body acceleration due to heartbeat-induced reaction forces can be measured as mobile phone accelerometer (m-ACC) signals. Our aim was to test the feasibility of using m-ACC to detect changes induced by stress by ultra-short heart rate variability (USV) indices (standard deviation of normal-to-normal interval—SDNN and root mean square of successive...

Body acceleration due the heartbeat-induced reaction forces can be measured as smartphone accelerometer (m-ACC) signals. Our aim was to test the feasibility of using m-ACC to detect changes induced by stress by ultra-short heart rate variability (USV) indices (SDNN and RMSSD). Sixteen healthy volunteers were recruited; m-ACC was recorded while in s...

Aims: Prolonged immobilization generates cardiac deconditioning, a cardiovascular disease risk factor, and efficient countermeasures (CM) are needed to prevent it. We aimed to assess by Phase-Contrast (PC) MRI the effects of long-term strict head-down (-6 degrees) bed-rest (BR) deconditioning and the effectiveness of high-intensity jump training CM...

Aims. Prolonged immobilization generates cardiac deconditioning, a risk factor for cardiovascular disease: efficient countermeasures (CM) are needed to prevent it. Our aim was to assess the effectiveness of high-intensity jump training CM on aortic and mitral flow by Phase-Contrast (PC) MRI during longterm head-down (-6 degrees) bed-rest (BR). Meth...

Introduction: Micro-electro-mechanical systems technology, now embedded into smartphones, potentially allows measuring heart mechanical activity by positioning the phone on the body and acquiring vibrational signals, without the need for additional peripherals or interfaces. However, lack of standardization in experimental protocol, processing meth...

Objective: The aim of this work was to evaluate the potential changes in the ballistocardiogram (BCG) signal induced by different respiratory patterns and posture, by using the dynamic time warping (DTW) technique. Approach: BCG signals were recorded in a group of 20 healthy volunteers, simultaneously to the ECG. Two recordings, one in supine (S...

Our aim was to assess the effects of 21-days head-down (-6 degrees) bed-rest (BR) and effectiveness of sledge jump countermeasure (CM), on aortic flow and morphology by Phase Contrast (PC) MRI. Male subjects were enrolled at :envihub (DLR, Germany) in control (CTRL, N=12) or countermeasure (CM, N=12) groups. PC-MRI images were obtained before and a...

Isolated episodes of heart rhythm disorders have been reported during 40 years of space flight, triggering research to evaluate the risk of developing life-threatening arrhythmias induced by prolonged exposure to weightlessness. In fact, these events could compromise astronaut performance during exploratory missions, as well as pose at risk the ast...

Methods: 9 healthy male volunteers were studied in supine (SUP) and in standing (ST) posture. A smartphone (iPhone6, Apple) was positioned on the thorax (POS1) to acquire SCG signal. While supine, a second smartphone was positioned on the navel (POS2). The SCG signal was recorded for 3 minutes during spontaneous respiration, synchronous with 3-lea...

Our aim was to test the feasibility of measuring beat-to-beat heart rate from vibrations of the body due to the cardiac activity by smartphone accelerometers. The signal recorded by the accelerometers has a similar morphology respect to the ballistocardiographic signal (BCG). This preliminary study was conducted on one healthy volunteer, with the E...

Ballistocardiography (BCG), measuring the heart beat-induced mass movements of the body generated by forces associated to heart contraction, has been recently reconsidered as a useful non-invasive technique to characterize cardiac performance, potentially offering a simple, efficient and affordable solution for e-health monitoring. Our aim was to e...