Intra-Corporeal Acquisition of Physiological Signals and Their Applications for Continuous Monitoring (Basic experiments in small animals)

Abstract

This research is aimed to monitor physiological signals obtained by intra-corporeal continuous monitoring. In order to measure the cystometrography in a continuous and non-invasive way, a capsule telemeter prototype equipped with bellows for bladder pressure measuring, and enabled to transmit wirelessly by magnetic coupling has been designed. Such device has been validated by in-vivo experiments with small animals to observe their behavior, which revealed that the heartbeat and pulse wave acoustic signals are also superimposed in the bladder pressure signal. They can be isolated from the original pressure signal by appropriate filtering and amplification process. It has been proved that our sensor-telemetry-system can continuously observe cystometrography and heart rate in real-time. This system is expected to be expanded to cover the heart sound signal or the fetal heart sound signal coming from uterus next to the bladder.