Recording of electrically evoked neural activity and bladder pressure responses in awake rats chronically implanted with a pelvic nerve array

Study Purpose: Bioelectronic medical devices are well established and widely used in the treatment of urological dysfunction. Here, we developed a device suitable for long-term use in an awake rat model that was used in a preclinical study of electrical neuromodulation of the pelvic nerve (homolog of the human pelvic splanchnic nerves). This candidate neuromodulation target contains sacral visceral sensory and autonomic motor pathways that coordinate storage and voiding functions of the bladder.

Data Collection: This dataset contains

1. Recordings of electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs) made under anesthesia in chronically implanted, awake rats up to 8 weeks post-surgery
2. Recordings of colonic pressure made during electrical stimulation trials
3. Recordings of baseline unstimulated cystometrograms suggesting chronic implantation of the array had minimal effect of void parameters
4. Example cystometry recordings where electrical stimulation with chronically implanted arrays induced two classes of bladder pressure responses detected in awake rats: voiding contractions and non-voiding contractions

Primary Conclusions: These results demonstrate a rat pelvic nerve electrode array that can be used for preclinical development of closed-loop neuromodulation devices targeting the pelvic nerve as a therapy for neuro-urological dysfunction.

Curator's Notes

Experimental Design: Rats were surgically implanted with a pelvic nerve array and a bladder catheter for use in awake ECAP or urodynamic recordings. All surgical procedures were performed under isoflurane anesthesia (3% for induction and 1.8–2% for maintenance, in 1.5–2 l/min oxygen) and aseptic conditions. Analgesia was provided using buprenorphine (Temgesic, 0.5 mg/kg, s.c.) administered prior to surgery and ∼10 h post-surgery. Recordings of electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs) were performed in acute and chronically implanted rats. In three urethane anesthetized rats, a balloon-catheter was used to monitor pressure in the colon during pelvic nerve stimulation.

Completeness: This dataset is a part of a larger study: ViNERS (Visceral Nerve Ensemble Recording & Stimulation) peripheral neural interface modeling environment.

Subjects & Samples: Male (n=29) adult Sprague-Dawley rats (RRID:RGD_10395233) were used in the study.

Primary vs derivative data: Primary data is organized by the subject ID and has been saved as.HDF5 files (https://portal.hdfgroup.org/display/HDF5/HDF5). Tabular data including stimulus information has been saved as .CSV files. Each folder contains one or more of recordings of electrically evoked compound action potentials (ECAPs), recordings of bladder pressure at baseline or following electrical stimulation, recordings of colonic pressure made during electrical stimulation trials, information about individual stimuli for ECAPs, and pelvic-nerve-stimulus-evoked bladder pressure changes, information about electrode contact impedances. Derivative data folder contains a summary of cytometry data.

Code Availability: Code to view the waves and to analyze cytometry data is provided in the code folder.