Commercializing digital wireless telemetry: the animal epilepsy monitoring unit

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Bio-Signal Group Corp. developed a miniature, battery-operated, multi-channel, portable digital telemetry system to record wideband bioelectric signals. DT measures biopotentials with high precision because it digitizes signals on the subject at 24-bit resolution. Perhaps the most obvious feature that distinguishes the DT from other telemetric systems is the DT is designed to record both fast and slow brain potentials such as action potentials (AP; 0.3-6kHz) and local field potential (LFP) oscillations that range from 0.1 to 500 Hz. Wireless data transmission with DT is robust up to 10 m in virtually any environment. A pair of 2.4 GHz transceivers guarantees a data rate of 1.536 Mb/s. The communication system of DT has no constraints on the origin of the digital data it transmits. The data comprising the 1.536 Mb/s can be arranged in any way by the microprocessor (MCU). DT has advantages over analog solutions for assessing signal fidelity, providing error correction and avoiding signal distortion during transmission (very difficult with analog transmission). A key advantage over competing analog systems is digital signal processing can occur at the signal source before the data are transmitted from the subject. The innovation means data can be optimized, compressed, and transmitted free of distortion. In Phase I, BSG demonstrated the feasibility of using DT to make electrophysiological recordings from freely-moving rats in the laboratory. We exhibited 2,4 and 8-ch prototype devices and meticulously gathered feedback from 296 neuroscientists who visited the exhibit at the last three Society for Neuroscience (SfN) meetings. This feedback helped identify a specific need for DT to record spontaneous seizures in laboratory animals. The specific technical developments required to create a commercial turn-key animal epilepsy monitoring unit (aEMU) are being proposed for this Phase II project. In Phase II we will: 1) miniaturize the transmitter stage; 2) optimize the transmitter stage for dense and parallel recordings; 3) synchronize the electrophysiological data with digital video recording; and 4) create software for analysis of the large database that will emerge from use of the aEMU. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Understanding epilepsy amounts to understanding the detailed relationship between the electrical activity of the brain and the spontaneous occurrence of seizures. This project will create an animal epilepsy monitoring unit (aEMU) to allow researchers to record spontaneous brain activity in laboratory animals that have spontaneous seizures. The aEMU will permit indefinitely long recordings in the animal's home environment, and software will also be created for analyzing the large database of information to help reveal key physiological mechanisms that may predict seizure events and ultimately lead to their control in clinical treatments.