Cardiovascular responses and the role of the neurohumoral cardiac regulation during digestion in the herbivorous lizard Iguana iguana

Cardiovascular responses of embryonic alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) exposed to 10% O2 and sodium cyanide (NaCN), a chemoreflex-inducing compound

The possibly interactive effects of changes in atmospheric respiratory gases (hypoxia or hypercapnia) and pharmacological chemoreceptor stimulation have not been assessed previously. We present a series of experimental protocols investigating embryonic alligators' capacity to modulate a cardiovascular neural chemoreflex response to a known chemoreceptor stimulant, sodium cyanide (NaCN). We incubated alligator embryos in 21 % (normoxia) and 10 % O2 (hypoxia) beginning at 20 % of embryonic incubation, and at 70 % and 90 % of incubation we measured heart rate and blood pressure responses to NaCN. These NaCN responses also included examining the effects of NaCN after 1-h exposure to 10 % O2., ganglionic blockade with hexamethonium chloride and α-adrenergic blockade with phentolamine. Injections of NaCN into the chorioallantoic artery caused a rapid bradycardia followed by a secondary hypertension, which can be attributed to an autonomic nervous system mediated reflex loop. We compared the heart rate response to injections of 1 mg kg-1 NaCN before and after a 1-h 10 % O2 exposure, and it was clear that embryonic alligators lacked capacity to change the intensity of cardiovascular responses to this compound. Hexamethonium greatly lessened the rapid bradycardia, and at 90 % of incubation, the secondary hypertensive response to NaCN appeared due to α-adrenergic stimulation, as phentolamine lessened the response. Collectively, data indicate that while a cardiovascular chemoreflex can be induced by NaCN, the heart rate response lacks plasticity and is not modulated by hypoxic incubation in embryonic alligators.

The pancreas does not contribute to the non-adrenergic-non-cholinergic stimulation of heart rate in digesting pythons

Vertebrates elevate heart rate when metabolism increases during digestion. Part of this tachycardia is due to a non-adrenergic-non-cholinergic (NANC) stimulation of the cardiac pacemaker, and it has been suggested these NANC factors are circulating hormones that are released from either gastrointestinal or endocrine glands. The NANC stimulation is particularly pronounced in species with large metabolic responses to digestion, such as reptiles. To investigate the possibility that the pancreas may release hormones that exert positive chronotropic effects on the digesting Burmese python heart, a species with very large postprandial changes in heart rate and oxygen uptake, we evaluate how pancreatectomy affects postprandial heart rate before and after autonomic blockade of the muscarinic and the beta-adrenergic receptors. We also measured the rates of oxygen consumption and evaluated the short-term control of the heart using the spectral analysis of heart rate variability and the baroreflex sequence method. Digestion caused the ubiquitous tachycardia, but the intrinsic heart rate (revealed after the combination of atropine and propranolol) was not affected by pancreatectomy and therefore hormones, such as glucagon and insulin, do not appear to contribute to the regulation of heart rate during digestion in Burmese pythons.