Development of Mouse Pulse Oximeter for Laboratory Study of Mice in Motion; Conscious Policy for Unconscious Organ Donation: Ethical Frameworks for the Technology, Policy, and Cultural Codes that Shape Brain-Dead Organ Donation Worldwide 109 views

Is the life of one being – animal or human – worth the health of another? The answer to this question has evolved due to medical advancements in life support and cultural norms concerning the ethics of animal research and human organ donation after brain death. Laboratory mice are studied in both anesthetized and conscious conditions to learn how mammalian neural networks display cognition, behavior, and disease-relevant phenotypes. The technical component of this Capstone Project aims to address the lack of mouse health monitoring tools that accommodate conscious, mobile mice while reducing stress on the animal and mitigating motion-related artifacts in data collection. Waitlists for organ transplantation have been growing longer around the world ever since transplant procedures became widespread in the mid-1900s, but organ donations have not risen quickly enough to meet this demand. As intensive care technology evolved to enable organ donation from patients in irreversible comas, physicians and politicians were able to expand the definition of death to bolster the supply of eligible organ donors. In the decades since, policies governing DBD have often challenged cultural conceptions of death and its associated meanings. Regulatory standards are essential to ensure compliance of human organ donation and animal neurology research protocols with cultural ethical standards, which are enabled by the advancement of medical technology in both laboratory and hospital settings. Current animal monitoring tools neither accommodate artifacts from conscious mouse movement nor prevent health risks to animal subjects by alerting researchers to signs of physiological stress. This project aimed to develop a health monitoring device to measure the heart rate (HR) and blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) of mouse subjects during neurological studies. The plastic collar housing the infrared sensor was modeled with computer-animated design and 3D printed, while the Python data processing program accesses readings through an Arduino microcontroller. We created a proof-of-concept prototype for the secure attachment of an infrared sensor to both the mouse subject and circuitry that enabled signal processing, data logging, and a user display highlighting physiological values and their meaning in real time. Our device measured HR and SpO2 within normal physiological ranges found in literature for anesthetized laboratory mouse subjects. Future designs should improve the stability and connectivity of the circuitry and housing components to further reduce motion artifacts. Magnetic resonance imaging studies are an additional use case for a version of this device equipped with magnetism-resistant shielding and fiber-optic circuit connections, which were evaluated in the design process but not included in the proof-of-concept prototype. The sociotechnical component of this research examined the effect of advancements in medical life support technology on the development of DBD and the subsequent addition of brain death in medical and legal definitions of death, as well as the conflict between this technical progress and sociocultural values around death affecting public attitudes toward. A literature review was conducted to trace the history of life support technology and its involvement in organ donation and transplantation procedures, as well as national regulations governing medical death standards and social science research revealing cultural values around death and the public perception of DBD around the world. The demand for more organ donors to accommodate the increasing need for organ transplants motivated much of the development of intensive care instruments and the political impetus for changing the regulatory definition of death. Despite the widespread legal adoption of DBD, cultural acceptance of this practice remains disparate across nations as a result of several factors, including the varying prevalence of religious beliefs and moral values concerning the meaning of life and death and the role of modern medical technology in between.

BS (Bachelor of Science)

Physiological monitoring; Mice; Organ donation after brain death (DBD); Medical ethics

School of Engineering and Applied Science Bachelor of Science in Biomedical Engineering Technical Advisor: Jay Kang, Dennis Chan, Elizabeth Proctor STS Advisor: Pedro Augusto Francisco Technical Team Members: Alexis Blankenship, Olivia DiNonno, Savannah Overby

English

All rights reserved by the author (no additional license for public reuse)

2026-05-07