Prolonged monitoring of colonic spike activity by a computerized system: application to the rabbit colon

In the present paper, we describe and validate a computerized system for the quantitative analysis of colonic spike activity in the conscious rabbit. This system allowed data acquisition at 160 Hz on 8 channels simultaneously during the recording session. Data analysis at the end of the recording session took approximately 10 min for each hour of recording. The spike recognition procedure was carried out on the basis of a discriminant function which discarded artifactual fast events. Data could be presented as histograms or be transferred into an ASCII file for later statistical analysis. Reliability tests showed that the misrecognition rate was only 3.88%. In conclusion, this computerized system is a reliable, timesaving tool for the quantitative analysis of colonic spike activity.