A fully implantable telemetry system for the long-term measurement of habitual bone strain

W.C. de Jong, J.H. Koolstra, L.J. van Ruijven, J.A.M. Korfage, G.E.J. Langenbach

    Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

    Abstract

    Long-term in-vivo recordings of habitual bone strain in freely moving animals are needed to better understand the everyday mechanical loading environment responsible for bone-tissue maintenance. However, wireless methods to make such recordings are scarce. We report on the successful customisation of a commercially available voltage transmitter hooked-up to a strain-gauge rosette, its subcutaneous implantation in rabbits, and the quality of the implant's strain-gauge recordings. Continuous wireless recordings of a completely operational strain-gauge rosette glued to the mandibular surface of a freely moving rabbit could be made up to 33 h. The resolution of the system was 1.5 microstrains/bit. The noise in the signal was 4.5 microstrains. To facilitate the automatic counting of bone-strain events in the retrieved data, and to calculate their peak amplitude, a novel approach is presented. The described technique enables the quantification of the daily bone-strain history defining the architecture and composition of bone tissue, and can help to further elucidate the strain parameters which influence bone tissue.
    Original languageUndefined/Unknown
    Pages (from-to)587-591
    JournalJournal of Biomechanics
    Volume43
    Issue number3
    DOIs
    Publication statusPublished - 2010

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