Electrocardiography in Wistar rat experimental model: analysis and characterization

Abstract

The experimental model of Wistar rat (WR) is widely used by thescientific community for the evaluation of xenobiotics and environmentalstressors. However, in spite of its great use, few publications have explicitlyreported the differences between the parameters obtained from the ECGdelineation and the different variables involved in the settings of a Wistarrat experiment. Variables such as supplied anesthesia, sex, age, weight,movement restriction and lead used influence the electrocardiographicparameters analyzed, such as RR, QT, PR intervals, P and QRS durations and peakamplitudes of P, Q, R, S, and T-waves. The first specific objective of thiswork is to organize the electrocardiographic parameters that have already been publishedby the scientific community according to their experimental setup. The secondspecific objective is to provide new parameters, such as the JTend and Tpeintervals, to the state of the art of Wistar rat ECG characterization. For thispurpose, a database of 48 Wistar rats categorized by sex and age, measured inlead II, was processed and delineated.