A wireless system for combined heart optogenetics and electrocardiography recording

This paper presents a new wireless device for performing combined heart optogenetics and electrocardiography (ECG) recording. While optogenetics is extensively used in brain research, the designed prototype aims at expanding this ground-breaking experimental approach to research and applications on heart diseases. Such a system has a multitude of applications ranging from laboratory research to the development of non-invasive optogenetic pacemaker with ECG feedback for heart resynchronization. The proposed prototype is designed for experimental research with small freely moving animals enabling photo-stimulation of genetically modified cells using three different wavelengths (470, 615 and 625 nm) with four intensities by varying LED driving currents between 79 and 198 mA for a maximum optical power of 208.5 mW. The system can record the heart ECG through four electrodes positioned as specified by the Einthoven's triangle. It is controlled wirelessly through a host computer where the recorded data can be displayed in real-time. The device weights 1.12 g without battery and has an autonomy of 3 hours of continuous stimulation and recording using a 100-mAh battery. Results from in-vivo trials with laboratory mice show that the system can successfully record ECG.