AJP - Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, Vol 256, Issue 2 549-R553, Copyright © 1989 by American Physiological Society

ARTICLES

Carotid baroreflex resetting during drug-induced arterial pressure changes in humans

J. M. Fritsch, R. F. Rea and D. L. Eckberg
Department of Medicine, Veterans Administration Medical Center, Richmond, Virginia 23249.

We studied human baroreflex resetting during 25 min of drug-induced arterial pressure changes in 10 healthy volunteers. Average (+/- SE) base-line systolic pressure of 113 +/- 4 fell to 102 +/- 3 during nitroprusside infusions and rose to 135 +/- 6 mmHg during phenylephrine infusions. Average base-line R-R intervals of 932 +/- 37 shortened to 820 +/- 39 during nitroprusside infusions and lengthened to 1,251 +/- 61 ms during phenylephrine infusions. Carotid baroreceptor-cardiac reflex responses were evaluated with a complex series of neck chamber pressure changes, and R-R intervals were plotted as functions of carotid distending pressure. Baroreceptor-cardiac reflex relations shifted on both R-R interval and arterial pressure axes during drug infusions, but there was no significant change of the maximum slope or range of R-R interval responses. The position of baseline R-R intervals on the reflex relation (operational point) changed significantly. Resting R-R intervals were closer to threshold during pressure reductions and closer to saturation for baroreceptor-cardiac responses during pressure elevations. These results document short-term partial resetting of human baroreceptor-cardiac reflex responses as early as 25 min after the onset of arterial pressure changes.

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