Non-Invasive PPG-Based System for Continuous Heart Rate Monitoring of Incubated Avian Embryo

Abstract

The chicken embryo is a widely used experimental animal model in many studies, including in the field of developmental biology, of the physiological responses and adaptation to altered environments, and for cancer and neurobiology research. The embryonic heart rate is an important physiological variable used as an index reflecting the embryo’s natural activity and is considered one of the most difficult parameters to measure. An acceptable measurement technique of embryonic heart rate should provide a reliable cardiac signal quality while maintaining adequate gas exchange through the eggshell during the incubation and embryonic developmental period. In this paper, we present a detailed design and methodology for a non-invasive photoplethysmography (PPG)-based prototype (Egg-PPG) for real-time and continuous monitoring of embryonic heart rate during incubation. An automatic embryonic cardiac wave detection algorithm, based on normalised spectral entropy, is described. The developed algorithm successfully estimated the embryonic heart rate with 98.7% accuracy. We believe that the system presented in this paper is a promising solution for non-invasive, real-time monitoring of the embryonic cardiac signal. The proposed system can be used in both experimental studies (e.g., developmental embryology and cardiovascular research) and in industrial incubation applications.

Nociception in Chicken Embryos, Part I: Analysis of Cardiovascular Responses to a Mechanical Noxious Stimulus

“…Although there are many well-established noninvasive methods for determining HR in chicken embryos [25][26][27], direct intra-arterial measurement is the gold standard for recording blood pressure [28]. In the past, blood pressure in chicken embryos was measured using glass capillaries or needle catheters inserted into an embryonic artery [29][30][31].…”

Nociception in chicken embryos, Part I: Analysis of cardiovascular responses to a mechanical noxious stimulus

“…While there are many well-established noninvasive methods for determining HR in the chicken embryo [23][24][25] , the direct intraarterial measurement is the gold standard for recording blood pressure 26 .…”