title: Large vasodilatations in skeletal muscle of resting conscious dogs and their contribution to blood pressure variability.
abstract: Large (up to +400 %) transient ( approximately 20 s) increases of blood flow were observed in the external iliac arteries of resting conscious dogs (n = 10) in the absence of major alerting or muscular activity. At the same time arterial pressure (AP) fell slightly while heart rate (HR) rose. The vasodilatations were resistant to atropine, ganglionic, beta-adrenergic and NO-synthase inhibition, but were suppressed by spinal or general anaesthesia. Vasodilatations of similar appearance were elicited by an alerting sound; these were abolished by atropine. The spontaneous vasodilatations occurred simultaneously and their magnitudes were well correlated between both legs, but were not correlated to the amount of concomitant activation of the surface electromyogram. The duration of this activation almost never outlasted 10 s. The reactive hyperaemia observed after a total occlusion of the artery even for 16 s was not large enough to explain the size of the spontaneous vasodilatations. Occlusion during peak flow of the vasodilatations did not affect the size of the reactive hyperaemia. Spectral analysis made separately for data segments with and without vasodilatation revealed that the vasodilatations substantially enhanced the variability of AP and HR at frequencies below approximately 0.1 Hz. In conclusion, large coordinated skeletal muscle vasodilatations were identified in resting conscious dogs, which are initiated neurally, but not by sympathetic-cholinergic or nitroxidergic fibres and which do not show any clear correlation to muscular contraction. The vasodilatations substantially affect the regulation of skeletal muscle blood flow and explain a significant portion of AP and HR variability.
authors.affiliation: Institut fur Physiologie und Pathophysiologie, Universitat Heidelberg, Im Neuenheimer Feld 326, D-69120 Heidelberg, Germany. armin.just@pio1.uni-heidelberg.de
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Just
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Schneider
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ehmke
authors.forename: H R
authors.initials: HR
authors.lastname: Kirchheim
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001143:Arousal / Q000502:physiology; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D004285:Dogs; D005730:Ganglionic Blockers / Q000494:pharmacology; D006339:Heart Rate / Q000502:physiology; D018738:Hexamethonium / Q000494:pharmacology; D006614:Hindlimb / Q000098:blood supply; D007083:Iliac Artery / Q000502:physiology; D018482:Muscle, Skeletal / Q000098:blood supply* / Q000294:innervation; D012039:Regional Blood Flow / Q000187:drug effects / Q000502:physiology; D009435:Synaptic Transmission / Q000187:drug effects; D014660:Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide / Q000502:physiology; D014664:Vasodilation / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D005730:Ganglionic Blockers; D014660:Vasoactive Intestinal Peptide; D018738:Hexamethonium