A Computerized Spectrophotometric Instrumental System to Determine the ‘‘Vertical Velocity’’ of Sperm Cells: A Novel Concept

Motility is an important parameter for flagellated or ciliated cells for their survival and propagation. There are different types of unicellular organisms such as bacteria, protozoa etc. that show motility by their swimming property. This motility has been found to be necessary for their virulence and motility of different groups can be differentiated by their respective velocities. Velocity level is also directly related to their infectivity (1–11). In case of spermatozoa velocity is considered as one of the primary determinant factor to predict on the quality and fertilizing ability (12,13). In the present international scenario, microscopic method is the most widely used subjective method for sperm motility analysis. Subsequently, more objective methods were developed, such as light scattering method, laser beam method, multiple exposure photographic method, etc (14–22). But, all the available techniques consider only the ‘‘horizontal’’ velocity and there is not a single instrument available for measuring the ‘‘vertical’’ velocity of spermatozoa