An in Vivo Isotope Study of Sodium Dynamics in the Inflammation Process Using Compartmental Analysis
Date of Award
Summer 1976
Document Type
Dissertation - Restricted
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Biomedical Engineering
Abstract
The following statement made by Etienne Jules Marey (1878) was prophetic of the present-day application of physics and engineering techniques in the biological sciences: "In effect in the field of rigorous experimentation, all the sciences give a hand. Whatever is the object of these studies, that which measures a force or movement, or electrical state or a temperature, chemist or physiologist, he has recourse to the same method and employs the same instruments." It is in this spirit that the areas of pathology, nuclear physics, electronics and compartmental analysis were applied to the study of sodium dynamics in the inflammation process. Inflamation is the local reaction of the body to cellular injury. The aspect of the inflammatory process denoted by edema appears to provide the most significant index of the long term changes occurring during the overall process. Since edema is dependent on the presence of sodium, it would appear important to study sodium movements into and out of inflammatory exudate under in vivo conditions so that a mathematical model of the actual dynamic system underlying inflammation may begin to be formulated. The white rat was used in all experimental procedures. Inflammation was induced by the granuloma pouch method in which inflammation follows a well defined 4 week period. With data obtained from experiments conducted each week over the 4 week period and the aid of a digital computer, models were constructed of the kinetics of sodium across the inflammatory tissue for each of the 4 weeks...