Key result
Carotid body ischemization impairs baroreflex sensitivity, whereas ablation improves it through altered sympathetic activity.
Why the study?
The effects of unilateral chronic ischemia or ablation of carotid bodies on sympathetic nervous system activity and baroreflex sensitivity were not well understood.
Hypothesis-generating for carotid body modulation of sympathetic activity; human relevance and therapeutic translation remain untested.
As is well known, activation of carotid body chemoreceptors that sense arterial blood oxygen can lead to sympathetic nervous system (SNS) activation, while chronic hypoxia-induced activation of the carotid bodies promotes the development of various cardiovascular diseases. It has been shown in the literature that bilateral activation of the carotid bodies reduces chronotropic baroreflex sensitivity, which is restored following their subsequent bilateral ablation. In this work, we demonstrate that unilateral chronic ischemization of the rat carotid bodies by ligation of the external carotid artery decreases chronotropic baroreflex sensitivity, whereas unilateral ablation of the carotid bodies, on the contrary, increases it. At the systemic level, the reduction in SNS activity is further confirmed by a decrease in the glucose level. Our results show that even unilateral hyperactivation or inactivation of the carotid bodies induce systemic alterations in SNS activity.
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Марков et al. (2022) studied this question. Unilateral chronic ischemization or ablation of the carotid bodies was evaluated on Chronotropic baroreflex sensitivity and sympathetic nervous system activity. Unilateral chronic ischemization of rat carotid bodies decreases chronotropic baroreflex sensitivity, whereas unilateral ablation increases it, indicating systemic alterations in sympathetic activity.
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