A contract with The Chemical Pharmaceutical Research Institute (NIHFI), Sofia, Bulgaria
An electronic device and a real-time computer program have been developed by a team under Dr. Boris Gramatikov's leadership. The subject of this contract was interfacing the IBM PC to an experimental setup for investigation of test animals' (guinea pigs) behavior under stress induced by controlled electric stimulation. The MechanoAdapter, just as the CardioAdapter, was designed as a computer front-end. It collects and preprocesses analog signals coming from a tensiometric bridge, and then transfers them to a self-built analog-to-digital converter, designed as a plug-in computer board. Digital inputs and outputs are optically isolated. Precise computer-aided calibration procedures render the system exact and reliable, and guarantee comparable results accross experiments.
The specialized software package created for this project is a multilevel menu-driven program. It includes data acquisition of 5 analog channels and real time display on the computer screen. Each signal epoch of 1 min is analyzed immediately on a time-sharing basis in a two-task mode, so that no data is lost. Eight vital parameters are calculated in real time, trended and archived. Special logic implemented in software signals the end of experiment upon detecting passive behavior. An experiment may last up to 120 min. The results are post-processed (trend filtering, averaging within separate experimental phases), and global parameters are calculated. Finally, a summary of the most important parameters is printed.
The MechanoAdapter is extensively being used
in NIHFI's cardiovascular lab. It saves time, personnel effort paper and
money.
The system has so far been used for testing a series of Bulgarian cardiological drugs and pharmaceuticals like Digitaline, Nifedipine, Isodinit, Monisid, Cordarone, Corinfar, Isolanid, Prenylamin, Captopril, Lanatidin, Lanitop, Reserpin, etc., developed at NIHFI, Sofia.
MechanoAdapter on top of the CardioAdapter
MechanoAdapter and CardioAdapter - rear ends - inputs, outputs and PC interface
