Team:Colombia Uniandes/Implementation

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Revision as of 15:25, 24 September 2013 by D.olivera1320 (Talk | contribs)


Glucocorticoid detection system

The Glucocorticoid (GC) detection system can be used to detect stress in any mammal from a sample of tissue. While doing the mathematical model we wanted to establish the base line for the levels of GC that our system was going to be able detect. The idea was that this base line served for all the animal samples and can be used as a reference point of stress in all cases. Nevertheless, it was found that the stress levels of GC varies a lot depending on the animal and the tissue sample.

To the mathematical model this variation of stress levels was a problem, because we needed to test the model with an established threshold and see if the system was turned on at this value. In order to solve the problem we decided that the tests of the model were going to be done with the threshold for stress in humans

Given the fact that the permit of the Ethical Committee were easier to obtain for human samples than animal samples, we decided to do the mathematical model based on the stress concentration of GC in blood for humans

Determination of the stress threshold in Humans

During stressful conditions, animals encounter different physiological changes. Nowadays, hormones act as good biological markers of stress; consequently, if properly characterized, can help us to detect high levels of stress when needed. In humans, changes in plasma cortisol levels are currently linked to stressful conditions. Nevertheless as cortisol levels vary within a circadian rhythm, in order to identify whereas if someone is stressed or not, it is necessary to identify normal or base conditions for each hour of the day. This information will act as the threshold for our system.