A Workhorse for Physiology (Telemetry/Plethysmography)

May 06, 2016

Baylor College of Medicine
Molecular Physiology and Biophysics
Other

Overall

Performance

Ease-of-Optimization

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Company:

Data Sciences International

Product Name:

Ponemah 5.2 telemetry and plethysmography system

Catalog Number:

PNM-P3P-520

DSI's Ponemah platform has many features and optional (and expensive) add-on modules to make data capture and analysis easy unless you are interested in low frequency events. There are a lot of steps required to set up the software, but once the protocol is established, it is easy to reuse for future experiments. The add-on modules are good if they have the parameters you are interested in; unfortunately my work has focused on low frequency events like breathing apneas and spontaneous cardiac arrythmia, which are not well suited to analysis with DSI's software. In these instances, the ability to export the data into an ascii format and analyze in your programming language of choice (matlab, python, R...) is useful, but would be improved if batch conversion could be implemented. The ability to link the telemetry and plethysmography recordings to video capture is a great feature. The recent integration with Noldus for their media recorder has made the process a bit more user friendly, but has introduced some bugginess in how the software performs (we have had to manually confirm saving of the video files as it will sometimes and seemingly randomly fail to do so).

Experimental Design and Results Summary

Application

Whole animal physiology

Starting Material

Live mice

Protocol Overview

The Ponemah Software and Equipment platform allows users to capture and analyze whole animal physiology ranging from unrestrained whole body plethysmography to implanted telemetry for blood pressure, ecg, and eeg.

Tips

When first setting up the recording protocols, check that your signal sources are correctly ordered.

Results Summary

DSI's Ponemah platform can generate summarized results for a range of physiology data including breathing measures for rate and tidal volumes, ECG RR intervals and power analysis, and other common parameters for Blood Pressure and EEG analysis (provided you have opted to purchase their analysis modules). If not, you can use the software to collect the data and export the signals as ascii files for analysis using your own favorite software.

Features Summary

Compatable with a wide range of physiology measurements, can perform synchronized plethysmography, telemetry and video capture

Additional Notes

None

Image Gallery

Summary

The Good

Can reuse old protocols, can synchonize multiple inputs, can export signals for analysis in other software

The Bad

Initial set-up is complicated, equipment is expensive

The Bottom Line

The equipment/software is fairly versatile and usually reliable. The user interface could stand to be improved, but can be learned with a short period of practice. It is one of the standard platforms used by multiple groups for plethysmography and telemetry.

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