Does sympathetic cardiac nerve stimulation alter ventricular distensibility in a canine left ventricle preparation?
This preclinical study demonstrates that sympathetic stimulation does not directly change ventricular distensibility, but aids relaxation at high heart rates by shortening systole.
Experiments with an isovolumically contracting canine left ventricle preparation do not indicate that sympathetic cardiac nerve stimulation induces any alteration in ventricular distensibility. If the heart rate is sufficiently high to produce incomplete ventricular relaxation, sympathetic stimulation, by shortening systole, restores the relaxed pressure-volume relation without any indication, however, that ventricular distensibility is changed.
Sonnenblick et al. (Tue,) studied this question.