The Adrenergic Nervous System in Heart Failure

IN this issue of the Journal Cohn et al. report that in heart failure central venous plasma norepinephrine is directly related to mortality, and that plasma norepinephrine is the only one of several univariate predictors that independently correlates with mortality risk.1 These observations contribute to an expanding body of information that suggests that the behavior of the adrenergic nervous system may be an important variable in the natural history of heart-muscle disease and heart failure.Cardiovascular function is under the regulatory control of the adrenergic or sympathetic nervous system. As first noted by Cannon,2 increases in heart rate, force of . . .