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Cardiovascular Indices of Peripheral and Central Sympathetic Activation

From the Department of Internal Medicine (H.S., M.W., A.K., R.R., W.L.), Division of Psychosomatic Medicine, University Hospital, Basel, Switzerland.

View larger version (21K): [in a new window]   Fig. 1. Effects of epinephrine, esmolol, nitroprusside, and norepinephrine on PEP (top), low-frequency systolic blood pressure variability (LF-BPV) (middle), and low-frequency heart rate variability (LF-HRV) (bottom) as compared with placebo. Nitroprusside increased LF-BPV and LF-HRV, whereas norepinephrine decreased LF-BPV and LF-HRV. Neither epinephrine nor esmolol had any effect on LF-BPV or LF-HRV.

View larger version (36K): [in a new window]   Fig. 2. Signal-averaged impedance cardiograms during infusion epinephrine, esmolol, nitroprusside, and norepinephrine as compared with the two placebo periods (A and B). Averaging was done with respect to interbeat interval length. Independent of interbeat interval length, epinephrine infusion caused a higher and earlier ejection component as compared with placebo; esmolol had the opposite effect.