Function for Reading ECG Signals from MIT-BIH Database

MATLAB provides an efficient function for reading ECG signals from the MIT-BIH arrhythmia database, which is commonly used in biomedical signal processing research. This function enables seamless extraction of cardiac waveform data without requiring manual file parsing operations. The implementation typically handles both header files (.hea) and data files (.dat) to properly decode the format-specific encoding and sampling parameters. Through this function, researchers can directly access clean ECG data for various analytical operations such as signal filtering, QRS complex detection, arrhythmia classification, and heart rate variability analysis. The function supports automatic conversion of digital values to physical units (millivolts) using the gain and baseline information stored in the header files. By leveraging this utility, users can significantly accelerate their ECG processing workflows while ensuring data integrity and standardization across different records from the database.