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The rat myocardial infarction (MI) model is widely used to study left ventricular (LV) remodeling. In this study, acipimox-enhanced (18)F-Fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) gated-positron emission tomography (PET) was assessed for characterizing and predicting early remodeling in the rat infarct model. Nineteen Wistar rats had surgical occlusion of the left anterior descending coronary artery and 7 were sham-operated. PET was scheduled 48 h and 2 weeks later for quantifying MI area and LV function. Segments with <50% of FDG uptake had histological evidence of MI (74 ± 9% decrease in parietal thickness, fibrosis development). At 48 h, MI area was large (>35% of LV) in 6 rats, moderate (15-35% of LV) in 8 rats, limited (<15% of LV) in 5 rats and absent in the 7 sham rats. LV remodeling, assessed through the 2 weeks increase in end-diastolic volume, increased between rats with limited, moderate and large MI (+72 ± 25, +109 ± 56, +190 ± 69 μl, respectively, P = 0.007). This 3-groups classification allowed predicting 44% of the 2 weeks increase in end-diastolic volume, and additional 34% were predicted by heart rate at 48 h. The acipimox-enhanced FDG gated-PET technique provides efficient characterization and prediction of early remodeling in the rat infarct model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, a smart adaptable strain gage conditioning system is presented. The system is based on analog and digital processing to meet particularly adaptability, flexibility, and complex computations required in calibration and compensation algorithms of apparent strain in strain gage. Analog processing, with adequate amplification and filtering, is used to adjust the strain gage and temperature signals to the full scale of the converters. The flexibility of the digital processing is used to compute automatic calibration and temperature compensations when strain gage and spring element characteristics are known or not. This new architecture, consisting of hardware and software functionality, is implemented on an FPGA including a core processor. Description of the methodology developed for the temperature compensation of the system, the architecture implementation results, and adaptation of the system are reported. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]