Does pretreatment with adrenoceptor blockade prevent reversible LV apical ballooning in rats experiencing emotional stress?
Emotional stress induces transient LV apical ballooning in rats via cardiac adrenoceptor activation, providing a potential animal model for tako-tsubo cardiomyopathy.
The etiology of a novel cardiac syndrome 'tako-tsubo' cardiomyopathy, otherwise known as 'transient left ventricular (LV) apical ballooning' and which mimics acute myocardial infarction, is not clear; however, emotional or physical stress is known to precede the attack. Left ventriculography of rats experiencing emotional stress induced reversible LV apical ballooning, which was normalized by pretreatment with adrenoceptor blockade. Together with results of previous studies, activation of cardiac adrenoceptors in the absence of ischemia-reperfusion is proposed as the primary cause of this syndrome.
Ueyama et al. (2002) studied this question.