ToxQb: a proof-of-concept multimodal monitoring platform for rat acute toxicity studies: toward humane endpoint decision support

抄録

Acute toxicity testing has traditionally used lethality rates (i.e., LD₅₀) to support hazard classification and labeling. Because death is the ultimate outcome of toxicity, it represents a convenient and common metric of toxicity. However, this metric has been criticized both from an animal welfare perspective and for its scientific interpretability. To support the integrated evaluation of acute toxicity in a richer physiological context, we developed ToxQb (v1.0), a Windows-based multimodal acquisition and integration platform that monitors and records thermographic, video, and electrophysiological data on a single screen. Rather than providing a flexible experimental framework, ToxQb is a practical toxicology-oriented monitoring platform for integrated physiological surveillance during acute toxicity studies. ToxQb was used to control and record thermography, infrared imaging, and multiple visible-light cameras, and electroencephalogram (EEG)/electrocardiogram (ECG) data were obtained from the surface electrodes of carbon-nanotube yarn and a small headset transmitter and streamed via network data transfer (NDT) using the commercial acquisition software AcqKnowledge. To enhance traceability and downstream analysis, ToxQb requires structured experimental metadata before recording, and it enables contemporaneous event logging during observation. All modalities are stored in analysis-ready formats. We demonstrated the platform’s feasibility through a representative experiment in which rats were administered haloperidol. The system provides a proof-of-concept framework for the future development of real-time humane endpoint decision support. Further refinement is required to ensure validated long-duration temporal alignment, particularly for NDT-derived EEG/ECG data stream.