Comparison of the reflex responses elicited by stimulation of the separately perfused carotid and aortic body chemoreceptors in the dog

In dogs under chloralose and urethane anaesthesia, the carotid and aortic bodies were isolated from the circulation and separately perfused with blood, the composition of which could be controlled at will. The remainder of the systemic circulation was perfused at constant blood flow, thereby enabling the reflex vascular responses to be determined. The systemic venous blood was oxygenated in the isolated perfused lungs of a second dog and the P(O2) and P(CO2) of the systemic arterial blood was maintained constant.2. Using hypoxic hypercapnic blood to stimulate the arterial chemoreceptors, carotid body excitation in spontaneously breathing animals caused an increase in respiratory minute volume approximately seven times larger than that evoked by stimulation of the aortic bodies. Whereas the hyperpnoea of carotid body origin is due to an increase in rate and depth of breathing, that from the aortic bodies is due predominantly to an increase in respiratory frequency.3. Stimulation of the carotid bodies in spontaneously breathing animals caused small variable changes in systemic vascular resistance, whereas stimulation of the aortic bodies invariably increased the vascular resistance.4. When pulmonary ventilation was maintained constant, the vascular response to stimulation of the carotid bodies was considerably modified in that constriction invariably occurred; that from the aortic bodies, however, was little affected. There was now no significant difference in the size of responses from the two groups of chemoreceptors. These constrictor responses represent the primary vascular effects.5. A similar modification of the carotid body vascular response occurred in the spontaneously breathing animal after denervation of the lungs, and is due to abolition of a lung-inflation vasodilator reflex.6. The size of the primary vasoconstrictor responses from the carotid and aortic bodies is reduced by lowering the arterial blood P(CO2).7. The results indicate that there is a fundamental difference in the functions of the carotid and aortic bodies. They exert a quantitatively similar primary control of the ;vasomotor centre' which is in striking contrast to the relatively more powerful influence on respiration by the carotid bodies. In the spontaneously breathing animal, however, the primary vasoconstrictor response from the carotid bodies is offset to a varying degree by the lung-inflation vasodilator reflex initiated by the concomitant hyperpnoea. This is not evident with the aortic bodies because of the relatively weaker respiratory response they evoke.