The effects of stimulation of the carotid body chemoreceptors on heart rate in the dog

It is well known that hypoxia causes tachycardia, but there is no general agreement as to the mechanism of this effect. Some workers have assumed it to be the result of a reflex arising from stimulation of the carotid body and aortic arch chemoreceptors (Asmussen & Chiodi, 1941; von Euler & Liljestrand, 1942; Whitehorn, Edelmann & Hitchcock, 1946; Dripps & Comroe, 1947; Alveryd & Brody, 1948), despite there being a number of conflicting reports of the effects of stimulation of the chemoreceptors on heart rate. Stimulation of the carotid bodies by various drugs injected into the common carotid artery of spontaneously breathing dogs caused bradycardia (Heymans, Bouckaert & Dautrebande, 1931 a, b; Heymans, Bouckaert, von Euler & Dautrebande, 1932; Heymans, Bouckaert, Farber & Hsu, 1936; Comroe & Schmidt, 1938; Heymans & Bouckaert, 1941), but perfusion of the carotid sinus region using Ringer's solution with either a high CO2 content or a low pH resulted in tachyeardia (Heymans, Bouckaert & Dautrebande, 1930; Heymans, Bouckaert & Samaan, 1935). More recently, Bernthal, Greene & Revzin (1951) excited the carotid bodies by hypoxic blood and found variable effects on heart rate. In every case chemoreceptor stimulation, whether by drugs, Ringer's solution or hypoxic blood, caused reflex hyperpnoea. On the other hand, in dogs in which the rate and depth of respiration were controlled by a pump, stimulation of the carotid bodies by either hypoxic or venous blood invariably caused bradycardia (Bernthal et al. 1951; Daly & Daly, 1957). In the cat Landgren & Neil (1952) found that stimulation of chemoreceptors by local application of various drugs to the carotid bodies invariably caused hyperpnoea, hypertension and tachycardia. In subsequent experiments, in which carotid body perfusion techniques were used, Neil (1956) showed that the tachycardia which occurs in systemic hypoxia was not the result of stimulation of the carotid body chemoreceptors.

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