Female Long-Evans hooded rats received 0 or 5 parts per million Cd, Pb, or Cd + Pb in the drinking water from weaning to 20 mo. Growth, measured as body weight, and organ weights were comparable among heavy metal and control animals. Indirect blood pressure responses measured trimonthly are discussed. Analysis of His bundle electrograms (HBE) and electrocardiograms recorded in sodium pentobarbital-anesthetized animals at 20 mo demonstrated that Cd selectively depressed conduction system excitability proximal to the common His bundle (atrioventricular node region), whereas Pb and Pb + Cd impaired conductivity distal to the common His bundle (His-Purkinje system). Perchloric acid extracts of liquid N2-freeze-clamped isolated perfused hearts, derived from a subpopulation of control and Cd-fed rats in which HBE analyses were not performed, were analyzed by phosphorus-31 nuclear magnetic resonance (31P-NMR) spectroscopic techniques to quantitate [31P]phosphate metabolite profiles. Cardiac active tension and atrioventricular node excitability were depressed in the Cd group. High-energy phosphate and glycerol 3-phosphorylcholine concentrations were depressed. Results demonstrate potentially significant pathophysiological changes within cardiovascular tissues that develop in the absence of overt heavy metal toxicity manifestations.
Rabbit sinoatrial nodes were isolated and studied in an attempt to determine the cell of origin of the true pacemaker potential. Cells of the sinoatrial node of the rabbit giving rise to the characteristic true pacemaker potential were iontophoretically tagged with lanthanum. The lanthanum appeared within the cytoplasm of cells, which morpholigically are "P" cells. The lanthanum appeared as small, amorphous, electron-dense globules. It is concluded from this study that the P or pale cell is the source of the true pacemaker action potential of the sinoatrial node.
The effects of ventrolateral and ventromedial cardiac nerve (left sympathetics) stimulation on cardiac force, on rate, and on arrhythmogenic responses were characterized and quantitated. The stimulation of left sympathetic nerves produced augmentation in cardiac contraction in 45% of the experiments, an augmentation of both a cardiac rate and force in 47%, and in cardioacceleration alone in 8%. Two characteristic patterns of arrhythmogenic responses were elicited from stimulations of 100 sympathetic nerves. The two types of neurally induced arrhythmias were atrioventricular junctional or ventricular in origin. The onset and duration of the arrhythmias were quantitated. Both types of neurally induced arrhythmias were prevented either by blocking the beta receptors with propranolol or by preventing the neural release of norepinephrine with bretylium tosylate. The neurally induced arrhythmias were probably the result of enhanced automaticity in the atrioventricular junction area and in the ventricles produced by stimulating the sympathetic nerve fibers. This report thus implicates the ventromedial cardiac nerve in the genesis of cardiac arrhythmias.
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