Abstract
A number of studies have successfully used electrocardiogram (ECG) signals to characterize complex physiological phenomena such as associative learning in bats. However, at present, no thorough characterization of the structure of ECG signals is available for these animals. The aim of the present study was to quantitatively characterize features of the ECG signals in the bat species Carollia perspicillata, a species that is commonly used in neuroethology studies. Our results show that the ECG signals of C. perspicillata follow the typical mammalian pattern, in that they are composed by a P wave, QRS complex and a T wave. Peak-to-peak amplitudes in the bats’ ECG signals were larger in measuring configurations in which one of the electrodes was attached to the right thumb. In addition, large differences in the instantaneous heart rate (HR) distributions were observed between ketamine/xylazine anesthetized and awake bats. Ketamine/xylazine might target the neural circuits that control HR, therefore, instantaneous HR measurements should only be used as physiological marker in awake animals.
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Abbreviations
- ECG:
-
Electrocardiogram
- HR:
-
Heart rate
- RT:
-
Right thumb
- LT:
-
Left thumb
- RL:
-
Right leg
- LL:
-
Left leg
- K-S:
-
Kolmogorov–Smirnov test for normality
- ANOVA:
-
Analysis of variance
- K + Xy:
-
Mixture of ketamine and xylazine
- Bw50:
-
50 % bandwidth of heart rate distributions
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Acknowledgments
We are thankful to the German Research Council (Grant # HE 7478/1) for funding support. The data presented in this article constitute a part of the data collected by Diana Mihova at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main for her bachelor Thesis. We are also thankful to Prof. Manfred Kössl and to two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on an early version of the manuscript. All experiments described in this article were carried out in accordance with current laws for animal experimentations in Germany (Experimental Permit No. F104/57, Regierungspräsidium Darmstadt) and with the declaration of Helsinki.
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Mihova, D., Hechavarría, J.C. The electrocardiogram signal of Seba’s short-tailed bat, Carollia perspicillata . J Comp Physiol A 202, 517–526 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-016-1098-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-016-1098-8