Alternative Approach for Studying Contractility of the Isolated Muscle Preparations in Real-Time Mode

Abstract

The real-time control over the observed parameters is known to be necessary during the experiments with biological objects. The use of approaches, such as real-time operating systems, often requires significant material or human resources (operating time, the special administration and programming skills and etc.). In this paper we propose an alternative approach for the implementation of real-time mode in the experiments on muscle preparations (papillary muscles, trabeculae, walls of vessels) based on an external input-output cards with built-in analog-to-digital/digital-to-analog converters and signal processor. As a result, we developed a hardware-software complex for studying the mechanical properties of biological materials (muscles) in real-time mode. This solution has a convenient and easy-to-use user interface, and requires a minimum of computing resources and minimal cost of electricity.