DECRO JACKETED EXTERNAL TELEMETRY

A unique cardiorespiratory monitoring solution for translational research, committed to better science and welfare

ETISENSE is a French biomedical engineering company, specialized in developing physiological monitoring instruments. The journey started with the idea that physiological monitoring should be simple and non-invasive to face the challenges of a modern and ethical medical research.

Their first product is DECRO, an external instrumented jacket, aiming to fill a gap and help improving medical research by providing research teams an innovative tool to monitor cardiac (external ECG) and respiratory function and activity index in laboratory animals. DECRO solution provides high definition, quality and reliability for the recording of external ECG, respiratory plethysmography and triaxial accelerometer in conscious, freely moving and socially-housed animals, with no signal loss or cross-talk.

A solution built as a platform, adapting to your specific needs

DECRO solutions have been designed to be easy and rapid to set up. The systems can fit from academic laboratories to complex industrial environment’s needs and budgets. Built as a platform, these solutions can seamlessly cover multiple species and incorporate additional features, without changing any hardware or software.

DECRO is available in 2 different ranges which can be chosen according to the number of animals to study simultenously and the nature of the studies:

DECRO Solution Components

Instrumented Jacket

DECRO® jacket: a soft, stretch but resistant jacket for an optimal acceptance by the animals.

Includes embedded plethysmographic sensors for respiratory function, protects the two external ECG electrodes and holds the Blutooth emitter.

Simple and rapid

Only 10 minutes are necessary to equip an animal. To facilitate the dressing, a “fitting tube” is used, in which the rat naturally wants to enter.

1 jacket, 1 animal, 1 study

Jackets are reusable on the same animal for several days, until the size does not fit anymore. You may need jackets of 2 sizes for a long study.

External data

The jacket allows the recording of respiratory signals thanks to its 2 RIP bands (thorax and abdomen). It protects the external ECG electrodes and also contains the Bluetooth emitter in its backpack.

Animal Welfare

Animals are unrestrained and can express normal behaviour while being equipped with the jacket. Rats can wear the jacket continuously for periods of 48 hours.

External Telemetry Hardware

The Bluetooth Emitter and the Acquisition System: the intelligence of DECRO®

The emitter houses the electronics for collecting three biosignals and features the latest generation of low-energy Bluetooth radio module for data transmission. Every effort has been made to miniaturize these electronics and reduce the weight borne by the animal, without compromising signal quality or device autonomy.

The acquisition system contains proprietary software and receives the biosignals send by the emitter thanks to the Bluetooth which has been designed to comply with industrial ElecroMagnetic Compatibility (EMC) requirements. It is a complete plug-and-play experience, without harassing setup or license management on every user’s computer.

High performance Bluetooth low-energy

Robust radio module and advanced protocol to prevent data loss with data buffering capability of several seconds and automatic acquisition resume in case of disconnection

No cross-talk of signals

No cross-talk of signals during multiple animal recording, allowing several devices in the same cage and room

Transmission range up to 10m

The emitter has a transmission range up to 10m in open field. The acquisition unit needs to be in the same room

Acquisition and Analysis Software

The LASA Software: your data in real time, remotely and without setup

The LASA software is the cornerstone of the solution. It will help you at every stage of the process of acquiring, visualizing, organizing, analyzing your data and store them for later exportation. It records physiological signals from the sensors, includes smart automatic algorithms to pre-detect cardiac and respiratory cycles, and calculates physiological parameters such as cardiac or respiratory rates.

Easy and rapid to set up

Thanks to the Plug&Play system, there is no installation needed on a computer, the software is executed from the acquisition sever and the connection is made from a web browser using an ethernet cable

Continuous or scheduled mode

Record your data continuously or, to avoid staying at your lab to start and stop measurement for several hours, program an automatic recording at the specific time of your choice

GLP compliant

Optional audit trail module implements an audit trail for the system and the studies. It is required to qualify the system in GLP environment and is compliant with GLP/ 21 CFR Part 11 requirements

Database driven data analysis and navigation

Calculate averages and error on binning times, realign data to markers, select and exclude data for analysis, inspect data with navigation between parameters and corresponding signals

Data management and traceability

Create or import protocols, groups and subjects
You can pre-configure in advance your experimental groups (control, treated…) and subjects and your experimental plan to save time in the lab. The software also let you export and Reimport templates for standard designs.

Automatic data organization
Stay focus on the animal instead of naming files and configuring stuffs. When you start an acquisition, just select the animal and your setup. The data recorded will be automatically organized and easily found during analysis phase.

Traceability
All metadata previously entered (weight, animal id, etc…) and the hardware used for acquisition are bound to the recordings. They are included in exported files to help enforcing traceability.

Data processing

Automatic respiratory and cardiac cycles detection
The software provides automatic algorithms to detect cardiac and respiratory cycles. Detected cycles are shown on the signals and can be exported. Although we provide standards configuration for the algorithms designed to work in most situation algorithms’ parameters can be globally or individually tuned if required.

Physiological parameters calculation and review
Physiological parameters such as heart rate are calculated for each cycle detected and displayed in the interface. Easy inspection of raw signals and cycles from averaged parameters.

Queued or parallel embedded data processing and analysis
All the processing tasks can be queued to let the user do other things during calculation times. Our ADVANCED system can process multiple recordings at the same time (It takes less than 15min to handle 100h). The software let you keep different analysis for the same recording and place tags to differentiate them (i.e reviewed, approved or 30s, 1h binning). Data with a label can then easily be exported in your usual statistics or graphing software.

Open and evolutive

Raw and calculated data exportation in non-proprietary format
Raw and calculated data are stored in non-proprietary format and remain available at any time. They can be exported in various formats: xls, csv, hdff5 or wav for further analysis, backup or archiving. Export can be configured to include: physiological and/or detected cycles and calculated parameters.

CSV and Spreadsheet export of analysis
The spreadsheets exported by the software have been designed to facilitate analysis with filtering data, pivot tables averaging. They let you easily customize statistics and analysis.

Updates and scalability
Connect the system to internet and get software updates from a click (subscription required). As long as new functionalities become available, you may be willing to upgrade your system. Our proprietary software is built to facilitate these upgrades installation, remotely.