Investigation of usefulness of electroreticulograms obtained from the sheep body surface in estimation of reticulum electrical activity.

Abstract

The experiments were carried out on 3 sheep with one pair of platinum electrodes chronically implanted in the reticulum wall. The reticulum action potentials were recorded simultaneously from the body surface (using the needle electrodes placed subcutaneously) and from the implanted electrodes using an electroencephalograph Reega XVI Duplex TR. It was found that the two- or three-phase deflections on the electroreticulograms obtained from the body surface were exactly correlated with the series of potential spikes on the records from the implanted electrodes. The number of phases in each deflection was equal to the number of the series of potential spikes during the reticulum excitation. During the reticulum hypotony the decrease in action potentials was observed. That is why we were not able to record the electrical activity from the body surface, while it was still possible to record electroreticulograms from the implanted electrodes.