動物用植入式皮下神經量測器之研究與應用

Abstract

心臟疾病在世界上是主要死因之一，在美國心臟疾病仍然佔30.8 %的總死亡率，而在台灣為2016國人十大死因第二名。心臟疾病中心律不整導致猝死的機率大約為50 %。然而心律不整的主要原因之一是交感神經系統，交感神經為自律神經的一種，在調控動脈各器官血管壓力以及身體核心體溫。交感神經在興奮時會增加心律，文獻指出交感神經活動可以透過皮下神經量測得到神經活性。當我們透過動物模型來探討心臟疾病時，科學家可以利用植入式量測器來研究心臟疾病動物模型，如果我們設計一個植入用神經量測器用來量測心電圖和皮下神經活動，在研究交感神經和心律不整之間關係會更容易一點。 透過此研究，我們發展出了一套植入式動物用皮下神經信號量測器，可用於活體動物行動時。這個儀器成功結合了藍芽4.1、固定的時間取樣頻率並且提供4K的高解析度取樣。在驗證以及實驗部分，神經量測器與實驗室所有的儀器相比之下，誤差值為0.05 %，並且成功植入大鼠體內傳出訊號；在訊號分析部分，軟體捕捉心電圖並能算出心率，此外用頻率500 Hz的高通濾波器濾出皮下神經訊號，透過實驗我們的量測器可以捕捉到皮下神經活動。

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the main cause of death in the world. In America, cardiovascular disease still accounted for 30.8 % of total deaths. In Taiwan, CVD is the second among the top ten leading causes of death in 2016. In CVD, over 50 % sudden death caused by arrhythmia. One factor of affects the arrhythmia is the sympathetic nervous system. The sympathetic nervous system plays important role in arterial pressure, control of blood flow through various organs, and maintenance of core body temperature. Sympathetic nerve activate will increase heart rate. A study shows that sympathetic nerve activity can be used to estimate subcutaneous nerve activity. When building up ambulatory animal model, scientist can use this instrument to implant animal model. Design a device apply technique that measure ECG and subcutaneous nerve activity is quite important thing. This device can help researcher easily to get the connection between sympathetic nerve activity and arrhythmia. Through this study, we developed the implantable device for subcutaneous nerve activity and ECG in ambulatory animals. This device combines with wireless BLE 4.1, fixed time interrupt and high sampling rate that can reach 4 K sample per second. At the verification and experiment part, the device compared with instrument at the lab. The error rate is only 0.05 %. We prove device can implant into rat’s body and transmit signal successfully. Through data analysis, heart rate can be caught by software. We separate subcutaneous nerve activity by high – pass filter. Proved the device can record the subcutaneous nerve activity.