Development of Noninvasive System for Detection of Sleep Apnea in Animals

描述(申请人提供)：该项目的长期目标是开发和商业化非侵入性设备，称为睡眠和呼吸跟踪(SARTrak)系统，用于高通量检测动物睡眠呼吸暂停。第一阶段应用的具体目标是设计和评估SARTrak系统的基本模型，该系统有八个室(每个动物一个室)，即SARTrak-8，用于检测小鼠的睡眠呼吸暂停。该项目随后将为未来高通量模型SARTrak-的开发和商业化铺平道路，SARTrak-SARTrak是SARTrak系统的一个商会，目标是药物筛选市场。睡眠呼吸暂停是一种常见的医学状况，在5%-9%的人口中存在。目前还没有药物可用于睡眠呼吸暂停的药物治疗。睡眠呼吸暂停发生在睡眠中，但不是醒着的，这表明神经调节和药物治疗的可能性至关重要。然而，目前还没有针对睡眠呼吸暂停患者的有效药物。造成这种差异的一个关键原因是缺乏一种有效的方法来筛选抗呼吸暂停药物。虽然基于分子和细胞的分析通常用于药物开发，但这需要对疾病的病理有一个明确的概念。到目前为止，这在睡眠呼吸暂停症中是不存在的，在睡眠期间电生理记录的“呼吸暂停”是唯一被认可的疾病标志。这一背景促使开发一种能够更有效地检测睡眠呼吸暂停的非侵入性高通量设备模型。我们提出了三个具体目标来设计、开发和测试上述设备，即SARTrak-8作为第一阶段研究。我们将结合压电薄膜(PEF)技术和全身体积描记技术来设计和开发SARTrak-8的硬件。我们将为SARTrak-8系统开发一个数据采集和离线分析软件程序。该程序将收集行为和呼吸活动的PEF活动，并自动分析和计算睡眠呼吸暂停。最后，我们将在小鼠身上评估SARTrak-8的整个系统的准确性和效率。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The long term goal of this project is to develop and commercialize noninvasive equipment, called the sleep and respiratory track (SARTrak) system, for high throughput detection of sleep apnea in animals. The specific goal for the Phase I application is to design and evaluate a basic model of the SARTrak system with eight chambers (one chamber per animal), i.e., SARTrak-8, for detection of sleep apnea in mice. This project will subsequently pave the way for future development and commercialization of a high throughput model, SARTrak-64, a 64 chamber of SARTrak system, to target the drug screening market. Sleep Apnea is a common medical condition, present in 5%-9% of the population. There is currently no drug available for pharmacotherapy of sleep apnea. Sleep apnea occurs during sleep but not wake suggesting the crucial involvement of neural regulation and the possibility of pharmacotherapy. However, currently there are no effective drugs for individuals with sleep apnea. A critical reason for this discrepancy is a lack of an efficient way to screen anti-apnea drugs. Although, molecular and cell based assays are commonly used in drug development, however, this requires a clear concept pathology of the disease. This is not available in sleep apnea so far and electrophysiologically recorded "apnea" during sleep is the only recognized marker of the disease. This background prompt use for the development of a noninvasive high throughput model of equipment that is able to detect sleep apnea much more efficiently. We propose three specific aims to design, develop and test the aforementioned equipment, i.e., SARTrak-8 as the Phase I study. We will design and develop the hardware of SARTrak-8 by combining the piezo electric film (PEF) technique and whole body plethysmography. We will develop a data acquisition and offline analysis software program for the SARTrak-8 system. The program will collect PEF activity for both behavior and respiratory activity as well as analyze and calculate sleep apnea automatically. We will finally evaluate the entire system of SARTrak-8 in mice for the accuracy and efficiency.