Greyhounds used to measure dielectric properties of brain tissue

Beadaa Mohammed, Konstanty Bialkowski, Amin Abbosh, Paul C. Mills, Andrew P. Bradley, Dielectric Properties of Dog Brain Tissue Measured In Vitro Across the 0.3-3GHz Band, The University of Queensland

Background

During the aging process, as mammalian cells replicate and grow, their water content decreases, resulting in significant changes in dielectric properties (transmitting electrical force without conduction).

The Experiment

Twelve dead female Greyhounds, aged between 20 and 81 months, were used to measure dielectric properties of their brain tissues, in order to provide information for use in verifying the validity and reliability of a microwave head scanner prior to its use on live animals.

Measurement on eight brains were carried out 24 hours after death and four were carried out 15 minutes after death.

After extracting the brain from the skull, the whole brain was measured at different locations, then samples of different sizes and tissue thickness were taken and tested from both freshly extracted brains and from 8 day-old extracted tissues.

The measured tissues from each brain were skull, white and grey matter, and cerebral spinal fluid.

Results

Results showed that there was variation of dielectric properties in white matter and skull tissue relating to the animals’ age, but no significant change for other tissues. Comparison was made with literature for other animals and human brain tissue. The measured data showed close agreement to pig brain tissue but lower readings than human tissue, illustrating another example of species differences – as well as differences within the same species determined by age.

Yet another example of the fate of hapless greyhounds in this country.

What You Can Do

Click here to sign our petition demanding an end to the use of dogs in experiments.

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