Psychologic stress and threshold for repetitive ventricular response.
A psychologically stressful environment reduced the threshold of the dog's ventricle for repetitive response. Elicitation of such a response indicates the presence of electrical instability and a predisposition to ventricular fibrillation, the mechanism of sudden death.
D000818:Animals; D001145:Arrhythmias, Cardiac / Q000209:etiology*; D004285:Dogs; D004562:Electrocardiography; D004597:Electroshock; D006339:Heart Rate; D006801:Humans; D010138:Pacemaker, Artificial; D013315:Stress, Psychological; D014693:Ventricular Fibrillation / Q000209:etiology*