Computer-assisted method for the analysis of postprandial gastrointestinal motility in conscious dogs

A fully automated system to quantify different parameters of gastrointestinal motility and gastroduodenal co-ordination in conscious dogs was designed and built around a personal technical computer (HP 9816). Online it performs sampling of contractions on four different sites of the digestive tract for two dogs simultaneously, data reduction, drift correction and storage of data on hard disk. Offline it performs baseline determination, peak detection, calculation of motility parameters such as amplitude and interval, plus co-ordination between gastric and duodenal motility and presentation of the results in both tabular and graphic form. To illustrate the possibilities and advantages of the computer analysis the early postprandial motor patterns for antrum, duodenum and jejunum were quantified during the first hour after administration of a small test meal.