The Use of Percutaneous Thermal Sensing Microchips for Body Temperature Measurements in Horses Prior to, during and after Treadmill Exercise

Abstract

Accurately measuring body temperature in horses will improve the management of horses suffering from or being at risk of developing postrace exertional heat illness. PTSM has the potential for measuring body temperature accurately, safely, rapidly, and noninvasively. This study was undertaken to investigate the relation between the core body temperature and PTSM temperatures prior to, during, and immediately after exercise. The microchips were implanted into the nuchal ligament, the right splenius, gluteal, and pectoral muscles, and these locations were then compared with the central venous temperature, which is considered to be the “gold standard” for assessing core body temperature. The changes in temperature of each implant in the horses were evaluated in each phase (prior to, during, and immediately postexercise) and combining all phases. There were strong positive correlations ranging from 0.82 to 0.94 (p < 0.001) of all the muscle sites with the central venous temperature when combining all the phases. Additionally, during the whole period, PTSM had narrow limits of agreement (LOA) with central venous temperature, which inferred that PTSM is essentially equivalent in measuring horse body temperature. Overall, the pectoral PTSM provided a valid estimation of the core body temperature.

The Effect of Rider:Horse Bodyweight Ratio on the Superficial Body Temperature of Horse’s Thoracolumbar Region Evaluated by Advanced Thermal Image Processing

“…Such assessment, following Dyson et al [ 30 ], should be useful in the everyday equine practice, where a horse performs the under-rider overground exercise with turns and circles. As the practical application of modern technologies is developing dynamically both in the field of equine thermal imaging [ 62 , 63 , 64 ] and DIP of medical images [ 31 , 33 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 ], each new approach can ultimately reach every horse owner.…”

Is Continuous Monitoring of Skin Surface Temperature a Reliable Proxy to Assess the Thermoregulatory Response in Endurance Horses During Field Exercise?

“…Apart from those studies, only one laboratory-based high-intensity exercise study, comparing exercise in four horses in a cool vs. hot environment, suggested that the tail T sk evolvement pattern seemed to follow the T c pattern (using arterial blood temperature), although a statistical correlation was not investigated ( 39 ). A recent laboratory equine exercise study using the implantation of microchips, measuring muscle temperature (defined as “outer shell temperature” in that study) which may be extrapolated to field exercise in the future ( 67 ). There was a good correlation between central venous temperature (CVT) evolvement and outer shell temperature during a short bout of exercise (8–11.5 min) until CVT reached 41°C, although the outer shell temperature was reported to lag behind CVT during the recovery phase.…”

Continuous Monitoring of the Thermoregulatory Response in Endurance Horses and Trotter Horses During Field Exercise: Baselining for Future Hot Weather Studies

“…A recent alternative method is the use of intra-muscular microchips embedded in different locations to continuously record muscle temperature ( Kang et al, 2020 ). Although the study was performed under laboratory conditions, this technique could eventually be employed in the field.…”