Biotelemetry: an original approach to experimental models of inflammation

Biotelemetry is a new biological technology which evaluates continuous spon taneous locomotor activity and body temperature in rodents. The telemetry s ystem comprises a transmitter implanted in the peritoneal cavity of the rod ent, and a receiver placed beneath the animal's cage. The receiver detects the radio waves and the activity of the rodents as counts which are registe red in the computer system, and the adapter detects the calibrated body tem perature. First, we showed that biotelemetric studies of different species (rats, guinea pigs, mice and gerbils) provide substantial information about their circadian rhythms. Second, using the most common examples employed i n pharmacology of inflammation (hyperthermia, arthritis, ischemia-reperfusi on and so on) biotelemetry has helped us to clarify the pathophysiological significance of the parameters of temperature and mobility in several exper imental models in rodents.