Engineering Creativity for Neuroscience

Small Vessel Myograph

Recording of force generated by contractile tissues, like smooth, skeletal or cardiac muscles upon mechanical, chemical or electrical stimulation. Myographs are most commonly used for the detection of vascular reactivity in physiological, pharmacological and preclinical research. Our Small Vessel Myograph system (SVM) has been designed to study vessels in a wide diameter range (from 600 μm to 1 cm).

                Click on the picture to get it in full size

Small Vessel Myograph recording system consists of the following equipments:

    • Mechanical assembly, containing the heated organ bath.

    • Small Vessel Myograph SVM-1b measuring equipment. This unit provides calibrated analog voltage output to record the

        contractions of the examined tissue on any kind of PC-based data acquisition system. Furthermore there is a built-in

        high resolution and fast analog to digital converter, which is accessible directly via standard USB 2.0 port of a computer.

    • Force Sensor Headstage VMY-1c.

    • Physiological - Biological Temperature Controller TMP-5b. This equipment regulates the temperature of the organ bath.

        This is the universal biological temperature controller of Supertech Instruments, which is involved in the Small Vessel

        Myograph measuring system, as well. On the Animal Temperature Control page you can read the very detailed

        description of the TMP-5b temperature controller.

    • Recording program: Windows-based signal recording and data logger program. It is downloadable as a freeware.

Specifications / Technical Data

Full scale force of the vessel sensor: 1000 mN

Mechanical bandwidth of the force sensor: 0 to 200 Hz (-3 dB)

Chamber material: unique stainless steel alloy, fully compatible with the living tissues

Chamber volume: 3.5 ml

Mounting method: pins

Vessel internal diameter: > 600 μm

Vessel adjustment (normalization): manually by a micrometer

Micrometer resolution: 0.01 mm

Temperature range: ambient to 60 Centigrade

Signal output choice:

    • Analog voltage output: for high resolution measurements on any 3rd-party DAQ device

    • Built-in analog to digital converter and data logger (with its program package)

    • DVM on the front plate (3 reading / sec): for normalization of the vessel

Specification of the analog voltage output:

    • Full-scale range of the electronic circuit for the vessel sensor: 2000 mN

    • Analogue output range: +/- 5 V

    • Resolution: 0.02 mN

    • Worst-case error of the full scale value: < 2 %

    • Linearity error maximum: < 2 %

    • Scale factor choice:

        10 V / N

        1 V / N

        0.1 V / N

    • Bandwidth of the analog circuitry: 500 Hz by default (option: 20 Hz to 20 kHz can be set by the factory according to the order)

    • Analog output impedance: 300 Ohm

Specification of the built-in analog to digital converter:

    • Resolution and maximum sampling rate:

        12-bit, 1 MS/s (default)

        20-bit, 16 S/s (option)

        24-bit, 16 S/s (option)

    • Data communication: USB 2.0

Every part of the mechanical assembly is made of stainless steel. The basement of the organ bath is a strong fixing plate standing on three feet. In the middle of the basement there is a heated tissue chamber. The material of the heated chamber is a very special kind of steel alloy, which is fully compatible with the living tissues. The temperature of the heated chamber (organ bath) is regulated with the accuracy of better than 0.5 Centigrade.

Small pieces of vessels can be fixed as rings on two tungsten wires. The internal diameter range of the measurable vessels is 1 to 10 mm. One of the fixing wires is attached to the force sensor. The force sensor is part of the Force Sensor Headstage VMY-1c. The other, opposite holding wire is fixed on the removable upper part on easily adjustable way. The Force Sensor Headstage VMY-1c is fine positioned by a micrometer, providing accurate control of vessel circumference.

        Working state of the chamber 

The whole measuring unit, including the force sensor, the Force Sensor Headstage VMY-1c and the opposite holding wire can be removed from the basement in one piece completely. This feature provides a comfortable and precise way to fix the examined tissue on the wires. The removable design of the measuring unit helps positioning of the vessel or tissue on the fixing wires accurately.

    Measuring unit has been dismantled to fix the vessel comfortably

There are flexibly adjustable tubes to transport carbogene gas and saline solution into the tissue (organ) bath to maintain the optimal physiological conditions for the tissue. The solution and gas tubes are easily detachable and repositionable on the basement.

Prices

You can find the general warranty and shipping conditions in the beginning of the Services page.

Small Vessel Myograph recording system SVM-1b, completely: 8040 EUR

The components included in the above price are:

    • Mechanical assembly, containing the heated organ bath

    • Small Vessel Myograph measuring equipment

    • 12-bit built-in analog to digital converter

    • Force Sensor Headstage

    • Physiological - Biological Temperature Controller TMP-5b

    • Windows-based signal recording and data logger program

20-bit built-in analog to digital converter SVM-20bit-U1, instead of the default 12-bit DAQ unit: 288 EUR

24-bit built-in analog to digital converter SVM-24bit-U1, instead of the default 12-bit DAQ unit: 780 EUR

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