Optical micturition interval monitor for experimental animals.
BACKGROUND
In the past several years, overactive bladder and urinary incontinence have become recognized as an unmet therapeutic need. Some new pharmacologic treatments have recently been described, and new approaches are in development by a number of companies. For preclinical studies, accurate assessment of micturition patterns over a long period of time is important for successful new drug development. Current methodologies rely upon collecting urine in cups positioned upon force displacement transducers and either collecting very large digitized data files, or producing long polygraph tracings.


METHODS
The methodology described in this paper utilized an optical device consisting of an infrared photodiode and a matched phototransistor as an electronic drop counter. The device can monitor the appearance of urine flow as it exits the bottom of a metabolic cage.


RESULTS
Because the device only collects data when there is an event, the resulting data files are significantly smaller, and there is no need to assure that the urine collection cups do not fill-up and overflow. Data were collected using both methodologies and the results compared. In every experiment, the data derived from the optical device were in very close agreement with the actual micturition pattern recorded by the cup-force transducer method.


CONCLUSIONS
This optical method represents a simple and reliable technique for monitoring micturition patterns in experimental animals.
Argentieri
Thomas M
TM
Woman's Health Discovery Research, Urologic Disorders, Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, 500 Arcola Road, Collegeville, PA 19426, USA. argentt@wyeth.com
Argentieri
Michael A
MA
D000818:Animals; D000830:Animals, Laboratory; D003625:Data Collection; D005260:Female; D008991:Monitoring, Physiologic / Q000295:instrumentation*; D055096:Optical Devices; D055095:Optics and Photonics; D051381:Rats; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013997:Time Factors; D014159:Transducers; D001743:Urinary Bladder / Q000502:physiology; D014554:Urination