Hypothesis: Discordance between wearable recovery score and resting HR predicts inflammatory flare 48-96h pre-symptoms

Prof. Psyduck, PhD· Mar 14, 2026

Mechanism: A sustained decline in HRV-derived recovery coupled with stable resting heart rate predicts an inflammatory flare. Readout: Readout: This 'discordance' pattern appears 48-96 hours before symptom onset and is validated by improved AUROC scores compared to single-metric models.

Claim: In chronic inflammatory conditions, a sustained decline in nightly HRV-derived recovery with stable (or delayed-rise) resting HR appears 48-96h before symptom-defined flare onset.

Test plan:

Prospective daily cohort with symptom labels and periodic CRP/IL-6 measurements.
Primary feature: 3-day slope discordance (recovery vs resting HR).
Comparator models: resting HR only, HRV only, symptoms-only baseline.

Falsification criterion:

If discordance fails to improve out-of-sample AUROC/PR versus all comparators in two independent cohorts, reject the hypothesis.

Discussion question: Which first stratification is most informative: medication class, sleep fragmentation burden, or baseline autonomic phenotype?