An approach to 24-hour electrocardiogram monitoring in sheep experimental model

Abstract

Sheep could be an excellent research subject for large animal experimental studies because of their heart structure and physiology have a lot similarity to the human. Long term ECG monitoring is a convenient tool for human and possibly veterinary clinical practice and research. Continuous ECG recording can be used to monitor and evaluate body physiological responses in various experimental conditions. Experience on sheep ECG monitoring techniques is sparse and mostly focused on short term ECG recordings. We developed a peculiar technique of 24-hour sheep ECG monitoring based on the available data on large mammal model, where we tried to share some insights and practical solutions working with this type of animals for ECG monitoring by using several commercially available ECG monitors also used for the human practice. Some producer specific hardware and software characteristic that we found important in daily practice were also discussed. In conclusion, sheep as big animal is relatively good object for Holter monitoring experimental studies: ECG monitoring is easily affordable, registered ECG signal is of similar quality as in human clinical practice, which is sufficient for the heart rhythm monitoring and arrhythmia and conduction disorder diagnostics. Additional effort might be needed for 24-hour heart rate variability calculations because manual revision of software ECG signal interpretations is requiring, but short-term calculations can be made easy.