The use of a compact protable microcomputer system (EPSON HX 20) to measure on-line the contractile activity of the digestive tract from eight channels. Application to pharmacological tests.

The chronically prepared gut with strain-gauge transducers is a useful model to evaluate the effects of drugs affecting the digestive motility in fed and fasted animals. This paper describes a rapid and reproducible on-line microcomputerized technique to evaluate continuously, 23 hr per day, the level of gut motility using a portable compact microcomputer (EPSON HX 20). The gastric, intestinal, and colonic motility indexes were automatically determined from the surface of the contractile waves from eight different sites over periods of time varying from 1 to 120 min. This system has been successfully used to investigate the motor effects of spasmolytic or antidiarrheal drugs inravenously (N-butyl-hyoscine, trospium, secoverine, and prifinium) or orally (trimebutine, loperamide) administered in conscious, fed dogs.