Respiratory Monitoring

respiratory MONITORING

Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography

The monitoring of the respiratory function in small mammals is typically performed using whole body plethysmography (WBP) in awake animals or pneumotachograph sensors in anesthetized. The different types of whole-body plethysmographs (Head Out, Double Chamber, Unrestrained …) share a common characteristic: the animals have to stay for the duration of the monitoring in a hermetic chamber with limited capability to move and isolated from their congeners.

Respiratory Inductive Plethysmography (RIP) is a non-invasive technic widely used to monitor respiratory function in humans and animals. The principle is to record trunk volume variations using flexible inductive sensors encompassing the trunk in a way to measure cross-sectional variations.

DECRO jackets are containing two respiratory inductive plethysmography sensors that have been designed to be wound around the thorax and the abdomen when the animal wears the garment. The repeatable placement of the sensors is guaranteed by two holes for the front paws.

As illustrated below, DECRO RIP provides volume variations which give access to different respiratory parameters.

Physiological parameters calculated

  • Respiratory cycle time (ms)
  • Respiratory rate (brpm)
  • Tidal volume (Arb.u or mL)
  • Inspiratory – Expiratory time (s)
  • Minute Volume (Arb.u/min or mL/min)

Automatic event detection

  • Inspiratory end
  • Expiratory end
  • Respiratory cycle 

Examples of respiratory signals

Respiratory data recorded on an animal at rest

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Respiratory Monitoring

The respiratory signal above is recorded during a resting phase from an adult Sprague Dawley male rat, dressed with DECRO jacket. The figure displays from top to bottom the respiratory cycles and the average respiratory rate over 20 seconds.

Respiratory data recorded on an animal at rest with respiratory events (sniffing, apnea)

Respiratory Monitoring

The respiratory signals above are recorded during a resting phase from an adult Sprague Dawley male rat, dressed with the DECRO jacket. The upper signal contains an apnea at the end of expiratory phase and the bottom signal sniffing bursts characterized by a reduced Expiratory Time (ET).

Related publications and use cases

Other applications

Activity monitoring
Cardiac monitoring
All-in-one monitoring
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