Heart Rate Variability Time Analyses of the Streptozotocin-Diabetic Rat

As the world prevalence of diabetes mellitus (DM) increases, animal models of the disease's progression are required for researching effective treatment. The streptozotocin (STZ) treated rat is known to cause hyperglycaemia. This study confirms that this animal model also displays DM physiological effects in the animal heart rate (HR) and heart rate variability (HRV). In particular, 5 minutes of rat (n=13) electrocardiogram (ECG) is acquired hourly for 30 days. At day 10, the animal (n=7) is dosed with STZ and the ECG is analyzed in order to determine the HR and HRV. The HRV is indexed using two time-based analyses, based on long-term (24hr) and short-term (5min) analyses. All analyses are compared to control non-STZ dosed animals (n=6) and display significant DM effects.