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1Department of Cardiovascular Dynamics, Advanced Medical Engineering Center, National Cardiovascular Center Research Institute, and 3Morinomiya University of Medical Sciences, Osaka; and 2Japan Association for the Advancement of Medical Equipment, Tokyo, Japan
Submitted 23 March 2007 ; accepted in final form 22 May 2007
Vagal control of heart rate (HR) is mediated by direct and indirect actions of ACh. Direct action of ACh activates the muscarinic K+ (KACh) channels, whereas indirect action inhibits adenylyl cyclase. The role of the KACh channels in the overall picture of vagal HR control remains to be elucidated. We examined the role of the KACh channels in the transfer characteristics of the HR response to vagal stimulation. In nine anesthetized sinoaortic-denerved and vagotomized rabbits, the vagal nerve was stimulated with a binary white-noise signal (0–10 Hz) for examination of the dynamic characteristic and in a step-wise manner (5, 10, 15, and 20 Hz/min) for examination of the static characteristic. The dynamic transfer function from vagal stimulation to HR approximated a first-order, low-pass filter with a lag time. Tertiapin, a selective KACh channel blocker (30 nmol/kg iv), significantly decreased the dynamic gain from 5.0 ± 1.2 to 2.0 ± 0.6 (mean ± SD) beats·min–1·Hz–1 (P < 0.01) and the corner frequency from 0.25 ± 0.03 to 0.06 ± 0.01 Hz (P < 0.01) without changing the lag time (0.37 ± 0.04 vs. 0.39 ± 0.05 s). Moreover, tertiapin significantly attenuated the vagal stimulation-induced HR decrease by 46 ± 21, 58 ± 18, 65 ± 15, and 68 ± 11% at stimulus frequencies of 5, 10, 15, and 20 Hz, respectively. We conclude that KACh channels contribute to a rapid HR change and to a larger decrease in the steady-state HR in response to more potent tonic vagal stimulation.
systems analysis; transfer function; muscarinic receptor; rabbit
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