Blood Flow Monitoring Telemetry Implant

The feasibility of an implantable telemetry device for the chronic monitoring of blood volumeflow in conscious, unrestrained animals will be studied. The main focus of this effort will be theevaluation of several well-established approaches to monitoring blood flow and their potential forincorporation in an implantable device with small size and low power consumption. As a minimumdesign goal, the device should be capable of reliably measuring relative flow with 10% accuracy at onesite in dogs and non-human primates for a period of at least 350 hours. Adaptation of this device forapplication in rodents is a secondary goal. During the project alternate designs will be investigated, firstconceptually and then via breadboard models. In vitro tests will be used to initially evaluate flowmeasurement accuracy of alternate designs. The preferred design will then be assessed in vivo to verifyflow measurements on different vessels sizes and flow rates. A requirements analysis will also beconducted for an integrated implantable transmitter capable of measuring blood flow, pressure, heartrate and ECG. Although no such equipment is commercially available at present, recent developmentsin both integrated circuit and battery technology may now make a cost-effective device feasible.