2018 Neurodegenerative preclinical models: Infrared pulse oximetry waveform wireless transmission in emotional contagion experiments

Team: Kaleb Branda, Joe Chen, Edgar Ulises Hernandez, Jin Tanizaki

Client: Claire Clelland, MD, PhD; Dept of Neurology, UCSF

Problem: Frontotemporal dementia patients have decreased heart rate changes to fear or anxiety, which reflects a well-known symptom of dementia: lack of empathy. Current mouse heart rate monitors are not useful as they require mice to be anesthetized, immobilized or tethered by cords. While development here focuses on pre-clinical models, an outstanding solution concept will be relevant to our human patients.

Need: Our unmet need is measurement of heart rate and movement of awake, behaving mice so we can test various interventions to restore cognition and empathy in our dementia mice prior to trying these treatments in human patients.

photo of 2018 capstone student team