Heart rate varibility in tegu, Salvator merianae

• Grant number: 16/20755-4
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: December 01, 2016
• End date: November 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Zoology - Physiology of Recent Groups
• Principal Investigator: Cléo Alcantara Costa Leite
• Grantee: Lívia Maria Duran
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Heart rate variability (HRV) refers to the time course of variation in R-R intervals. Despite it has been well described in mammals, it description was just described qualitatively on reptiles. With the correct description of this mechanism, it will be possible to analyze the integrity of the autonomic nervous system and its function, as well as the possibility of quantification of the relation between sympathetic and parasympathetic modulation, for example, during recuperation post-surgical procedure, anesthesia, sedation and manipulation. Furthermore, HRV description can be utilized to analyze presence of respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), that causes increases and decreases of heart rate in a cycle of expiration and inspiration, respectively. RSA is dependent of alterations on parasympathetic modulation of heart rate and is partially understood in mammals. Therefore, after HRV characterization, it will be possible to monitor post instrumentation recovering and also others factors that may cause stress on the animal in not invasive way. This type of monitoring can be of great relevance to any study that use autonomic functions on reptiles. The proposition of this project is describe HRV on tegu, evaluate the effects of instrumentation on it, as well as to evaluate if it is possible to do inferences about autonomic modulation using HRV. (AU)