Construction of a cardiac tissue stretching device for electrophysiological study

A stretching device was constructed for the study of arrythmias generated by means of the stretching of Purkinje fibers. The polycarbonate device consists of a base where a physiological solution reservoir along with a linkage mechanism are located. The linkage mechanism allows the two clamps used to secure the tissue sample (and located inside the reservoir) to move against and toward each other, in order to stretch the fibers. The mechanism can be actuated in two ways: manually (using a gear train), or by using a couple of DC solenoids which are synchronized by an electrical stimulator. The result was two different types of stretching on the Purkinje fibers: a stretching with changes in the diastolic length, and a pulsed stretching. The prototype was further incorporated to an intracellular biopotentials acquisition system, and used for an electrophysiological study of tissue