I am trying to use heart beat as a developmental index to study the effect of environmental contaminants. I will be using MS-222 (Tricaine methanesulfonate) to anesthetize the larvae.
Ms-222 will definitely affect the heart beat. In general to measure it you should take a short video of the heart and measure the image change over time. I recommend this publications.
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Ultrasound (like by the company of Fujifilm - Visualsonics) may be an option to measure the heartbeat. There are devices available for adults, they can probably also used in larvae. But Tricain (MS-222) is affecting the heartbeat, like probably all anesthetics. Depending on size and age of the larvae it may work with just embedding them into soft agarose to immobilize them. Or use a wet sponge with a slit in it to position the larvae.