Computer-based methods for measurement, recording and modeling vessel responses in vitro: a pilot study with...

This paper reports the first results of an ongoing methodological pilot study aimed at designing techniques for the automatic measurement and digital recording of vessel responses to biologically active substances under in vitro conditions and for the mathematical modeling of the underlying processes. The techniques presented in this pilot study allowed us to determine model-based estimates of the parameters characterizing vasoconstrictor responses, i.e., the vessel sensitivity parameter, the mean time of vasoconstrictor response and the rate constant of vessel relaxation. The given parameters are not dependent on doses of biologically active substances, provided that the underlying processes satisfy the principle of superposition. Use of these techniques is shown in the classic study of vasoconstrictor responses to noradrenaline in the rat renal artery.