Cardiovascular response to graded exercise in the sympathectomized-vagotomized dog

Seven dogs who ran well on a motor-driven treadmill were completely sympathectomized (including adrenal denervation) and subjected to unilateral vagotomy below the recurrent laryngeal branch. After recovery and retraining, a terminal experiment was performed in which, after completing the vagotomy, direct Fick determinations of cardiac output and continuous recordings of mean arterial pressure, heart rate, and oxygen consumption were made at rest and during increasing exercise The results were compared with those described by Barger et al. ( Am. J. Physiol. 184: 613, 1956) for normal dogs running at smaller speeds and grades. The heart rate of the operated dogs increased from 117 to 134. Barger's normal dogs doubled their heart rate. The A-V oxygen difference increased with work slightly less than Barger's normal dogs but the scatter in both groups was wide, as was the case with the stroke volume. The resting cardiac output was nearly normal in the operated dogs but increased only 34% with exercise, as against 200–300% in Barger's normals. Oxygen consumption increased about twofold as against the expected normal of three- to sevenfold. Peripheral resistance in both groups went down about 40%. The blood pressure in the normal increased substantially while that in the operated dogs fell about 20% to an average of 60 mm Hg.