Data Acquisition Designed for Muscle Physiology Pre-Clinical Trials

LabTrax 8/16 hardware combined with MDAC software is an excellent choice for WPI's SI-H line of muscle physiology products like the SI-MT Muscle Platform, SI-CTS Cell Tester and SI-HTB Horizontal Tissue Baths. This data acquisition system is ideal for testing physiological characteristics like the contractile and elastic properties of different tissues in various conditions like isometric, anisometric or isotonic states. This data acquisition system was designed with the muscle researcher in mind, because the knowledge of physiological characteristics of muscles is critical when quantifying the beneficial or adverse effects of a stimulus (like a pharmaceutical drug) on muscle function in pre-clinical studies.

LabTrax 8/16

 Up to 8 Channels with Independent Control

LabTrax 8/16 is a powerful low noise and high resolution data acquisition system, allowing up to 8 ADC channels and 4 DAC channels synchronously for user-defined muscle length and electrical stimulation protocols. It includes a number of adjustable standard functions like DC levels, ramps, square waves, sinus waves and staircases so you can define your own muscle length and electrical stimulation protocols. These standard functions can be combined in any configuration to create specific, user-defined, experimental protocols. In addition, two 5V TTL standard BNC outputs are available to drive further devices. Thanks to its global feature in defining numerous lengths change and electrical stimulation protocols, and its standard BNC connections, LabTrax 8/16 with MDAC can drive external devices.

 Experimental Protocols in Muscle Physiology

In muscle physiology, specific experimental protocols can be programmed to measure muscle contractile and elastic properties like twitch or tetanus protocols (for example, cardiac or skeletal muscle), quick stretch-relaxation protocols to calculate dynamic force or static force, or sinusoidal perturbation protocols (for example, lung tissue mechanics) to describe force-length loops to obtain dynamic stiffness and hysteresis effects of biological tissue. In addition, fatigue protocols may be individually programmed.

 DataAcqusition

Continuous Stimulation for Cardiac Cells

New features of LabTrax 8/16 with MDAC software include the use of continuous stimulation protocols to maintain especially cardiac cells during resting periods.

Annotating the Data

Annotation marks can be set during acquisition and read in the analysis options.

Data Analysis Included with Data Acquisition Software

MDAC software also includes a standard offline Analysis Toolbox for data processing and data analysis. Data processing and data analysis methods can be applied to each single channel individually.

Software Filters for Data

MDAC data processing allows for the use of different filter options to smooth the signal or to delete frequency components, using adjustable Butterworth low-pass, high-pass, band-pass or band-stop filters. MDAC includes the use of adjustable smoothing filters like Savitzky-Golay or Moving average. Down sampling options further smooth the signal and reduce the data amount.

Mathematical and Statistical Calculations of Data

MDAC data analysis allows for running mathematical operations on the acquired signals, like the calculation of the derivative or integral. In addition, the derivative can be calculated on the maximum or minimum value of the signal or on a value of a specific cursor position. Within these options, the calculation of a slope value for a given signal or the latency between two signals is possible. Finally, standard statistical analysis within MDAC can calculate the mean or median value for a selected interval and its corresponding standard deviation, as well as, the minimum and maximum value within the interval.

For all data processing and data analysis methods, the raw data set can easily be restored during analysis, while already processed data can be stored as binary file. Further automated standard analysis, like twitch or tetanus, or customer defined analysis routines may be included as specific toolboxes.

Excellent Data Acquisition System for Muscle Physiology Applications

MDAC software combined with LabTrax 8/16 hardware is a reliable and affordable solution for muscle physiology applications. 

 

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