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School of Sport and Exercise Sciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT, United Kingdom
Submitted 30 September 2002 ; accepted in final form 17 January 2003
| ABSTRACT |
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cardiovascular control; muscle afferents; isometric exercise
Skeletal muscle contraction activates both group III and IV muscle afferent fibers, which, in turn, mediate increases in blood pressure and heart rate (7). Broadly, group III muscle afferents are sensitive to mechanical stimuli, and group IV to chemical stimuli, although a proportion of both group III and IV muscle afferents is polymodal and responds to both forms of stimuli (14, 15, 20). To date, interest has focused mainly on the role of the chemoreflex (4, 12, 13, 25); therefore, comparatively little is known about the effects of the muscle mechanoreflex on the arterial baroreflex. In decerebrate cats, electrical stimulation of group III fibers of the peroneal nerve inhibited the cardiac vagal component of the arterial baroreflex (19), and, in another animal study on anesthetized dogs, stimulation of the mechanoreceptors by passive stretch reset the carotid baroreflex (27). In humans, there have been studies that set out to separate the influences of central command and muscle afferent inputs on the arterial baroreflex (10, 23). However, the volitional exercise used in these protocols makes the roles of muscle mechanoreceptor and chemoreceptor afferent feedback difficult to interpret, because the presence of central command may mask or modify their influence. This is of particular concern with regard to the muscle mechanoreflex effects on arterial baroreflex sensitivity (BRS), as was illustrated by the work of Iellamo et al. (13). They used low-level electrically evoked knee-extensor exercise to remove central command and separated the influence of muscle mechanoreflex activation from that of muscle chemoreceptor stimulation on BRS by performing the exercise with and without circulatory occlusion. In the absence of central command, during exercise with open circulation, when it was supposed that muscle mechanoreceptors alone were activated, albeit weakly, they reported a reduction in BRS. When the same exercise was performed volitionally, this effect was lost, as it was also when the electrically evoked exercise was performed with closed circulation, thereby causing muscle chemoreflex activation (13). Their conclusion was that both central command and muscle chemoreflex activation overwhelmed the inhibitory influence of the muscle mechanoreceptor stimulation. In a previous study, our laboratory (4) observed that BRS was increased during postexercise circulatory occlusion (PECO) after electrically evoked plantar flexion, when muscle chemosensitive afferents alone were stimulated. The question then arises: in the absence of central command, could mechanoreceptor activation override a strong preexisting metaboreflex-increased BRS? The present study was designed to investigate this question.
If external compression is applied to isometrically contracting muscle and maintained during a phase of PECO, cardiovascular responses seen during PECO are accentuated, and these increased responses have been attributed to the additional muscle mechanoreceptor stimulation (17, 32). Therefore, we used external compression after isometric exercise to reactivate the muscle mechanoreceptors during PECO to examine further the interaction of muscle mechanoreceptor and chemoreceptor afferent activation on BRS. Our hypothesis was that, during PECO, when central command is absent and muscle is quiescent, mechanoreceptor activation by external compression would alter the existing exercise-induced metaboreflex increase in BRS.
| METHODS |
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Subjects were habituated to all procedures before definitive measurement, and none of the procedures elicited pain. Maximum voluntary contraction (MVC) and evoked pressor responses at 30% MVC were measured by well-established methods (3, 9). There were two trials: 1) control and 2) compression. Each trial followed the same protocol, which consisted of four continuous 2-min phases. A 2-min rest period, to obtain baseline measures, was followed by a 2-min electrically evoked isometric contraction (Stim), produced by submaximal tetanic stimulation at a frequency of 20 Hz, and maintained at 30% maximum voluntary strength. During Stim, circulation was occluded to the lower leg by inflation of a thigh cuff to >200 mmHg, and, after Stim, the inflated thigh cuff remained in place for a further 2 min (PECO). A 2-min recovery period followed. However, during compression, which was performed on a separate day, a cuff (inflated to 250 mmHg) was applied to the active calf during Stim and PECO.
Continuous blood pressure responses and R-wave-R-wave (R-R) intervals were recorded throughout the 8-min protocol. The R-R interval was recorded by using a three-lead ECG and heart rate monitor (Cardiorater CR7, Cardiac Records). A 2300 Finapres (Ohmeda) was used to record beat-to-beat blood pressure from the middle finger of the left hand, which was supported at heart level throughout the experiment by means of an adjustable stand. Analog blood pressure and ECG signals were transmitted to an analog-to-digital converter (Cambridge Electronic Design 1401 plus). The sampling frequency of analog-to-digital conversion was 1,000 Hz for each signal. Blood pressure and ECG data were displayed and analyzed on a personal computer (Vale Platinum).
BRS was calculated by the spontaneous sequence analysis technique (see Ref. 26 for review). Beat-to-beat systolic blood pressure (SBP) and R-R intervals were searched, by purpose-written software, for sequences of three or more consecutive beats in which SBP increased progressively and the subsequent R-R interval lengthened or vice versa. The minimum change was 1 mmHg for SBP and 1 ms for R-R interval, and a lag of one beat was used. Linear regressions relating SBP to R-R interval were plotted for each sequence, and only those with linear r values >0.92 were used. Slopes derived from all sequences within each of the four 2-min phases were pooled so that one measure of BRS was obtained for each subject for each phase (rest, Stim, PECO, recovery) of the protocol.
Statistics. Data are reported as group means (±SE), unless otherwise stated. Comparison of the measured variables during the four phases of the protocol was made by using a repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance. A post hoc Student's paired t-test was performed, if a significant effect was indicated. The criterion for statistical significance was P < 0.05.
| RESULTS |
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Baroreflex responses. In both control and compression experiments, there was a rightward shift of the regression line along the pressure axis during Stim, indicated by a decrease in intercept along the R-wave-R-wave interval axis, which reached significance (P < 0.05) during the compression experiment (Table 1). In the control experiment, BRS was significantly (P < 0.01) increased from 10.37 ± 1.87 ms/mmHg during Stim to 12.79 ± 1.62 ms/mmHg during PECO (Fig. 2). However, in the external compression experiment, BRS did not increase between Stim (10.84 ± 1.86 ms/mmHg) and PECO (11.40 ± 1.54 ms/mmHg).
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| DISCUSSION |
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During PECO, central command and muscle mechanoreceptor activation are absent, and, therefore, muscle chemosensitive afferents alone are stimulated. We (4) have shown that, during PECO, after electrically evoked plantar flexion, BRS was increased above that seen during evoked exercise, where both muscle mechanoreceptor and chemoreceptor afferents would be active, but not central command. The control experiment of the present study confirms a significant increase in BRS during PECO from that seen during evoked exercise. The novel finding is that the likely restoration of mechanoreceptor activation by the application of external compression during PECO prevented the BRS increase seen in the control experiment, even though blood pressure was further elevated during compression. Gallagher et al. (10) reported a reset baroreflex with unaltered sensitivity during volitional exercise, with further resetting and unaltered sensitivity when attempting to manipulate muscle afferent input with medical antishock trousers (10). However, the background of central command in this study may act to override muscle afferent effects on BRS. Additionally, the vascular obstruction caused by medical antishock trouser inflation to 100 mmHg may also increase muscle chemoreceptor afferent discharge, together with that of the intended muscle mechanoreceptor afferents.
Our finding is compatible with that of Iellamo and coworkers (13), who, using the same sequence analysis technique, reported a decreased BRS during low-level (
15% MVC) electrically evoked rhythmic dynamic exercise. It was assumed that, at this low level of involuntary exercise under local free blood flow conditions, only mechanoreceptors would be activated. However, it is unclear whether this activation was caused by the concentric exercise or, as recently demonstrated (11), the passive muscle stretch, which would occur during recovery of the limb. The reduction in BRS was abolished when the same exercise was repeated under ischemic conditions, which would lead to activation of muscle chemoreceptors. This prompted Iellamo and coworkers to conclude that any influence exerted by muscle mechanoreceptor stimulation was overwhelmed by the rising level of muscle chemoreflex activation, which would occur during their 3- to 3.5-min dynamic exercise protocol when it was performed with occluded limb blood flow. Our data show that the influence of existing muscle chemoreflex activation on BRS can be overcome by the addition of external compression, which may activate muscle mechanoreceptive afferents. Taken together with our earlier findings and those of Iellamo et al., the data suggest that the primacy of muscle mechano- or chemoreflex activation is unimportant in determining the resultant BRS. Clearly, further studies that manipulate the relative magnitudes of these reflexes are required to fully describe their relationship and central integration and indeed to study their influence on BRS when central command is present at different levels.
The sequence technique has some advantages over other methods (see Refs. 5, 26 for review), and, in many respects, it is an ideal tool for this work because it is noninvasive and reflects spontaneous changes in BRS within the normal working range of blood pressure. However, it does not give a full description of the baroreflex curve, and this restricts interpretation of BRS change, because it must be assumed that any such change occurs within the linear portion of the baroreflex range. Although an alternate explanation of our data could be a shift of the baroreflex to a less sensitive portion of a reset but normally shaped baroreflex curve, the assumption that the BRS changes seen in this study occur within the linear portion of the baroreflex range does not seem unreasonable in healthy individuals performing exercise at this level. Most importantly, the sequence technique reveals baroreflex-driven changes in heart period that are mediated via changes in vagal tone (26). The findings of the present study, that muscle mechanoreflex activation seems capable of reducing BRS against a background of muscle chemoreflex activation, add further support to a model put forward to explain muscle afferent modulation of BRS (4) (Fig. 3). Briefly, it is suggested that, during electrically evoked isometric exercise, blood pressure rise excites baroreflex afferents, and this provides an excitatory input to cardiac vagal motoneurons in the nucleus tractus solitarius. This offsets the inhibitory effect of muscle mechanoreceptor activation (18) on these same motoneurons (30). The net result of mechanoreflex, chemoreflex, and baroreflex activation is an unchanged BRS about a higher arterial pressure during exercise. In the absence of central command, cessation of evoked exercise leads to the abrupt loss of mechanoreceptor activation and the inhibitory effect of the muscle mechanoreflex on cardiac vagal motoneurons. Continued muscle chemoreflex-induced sympathoexcitation during PECO prevents the complete restoration of blood pressure to resting levels and, therefore, maintains an increased stimulus to baroreflex firing. The result of the withdrawal of the muscle mechanoreceptor inhibition and the maintenance of the baroreflex excitation at above resting levels would be an increased firing of the cardiac vagal motoneurons during spontaneous blood pressure fluctuations. The outcome is an increased BRS (4, 13). Our previous finding (4) of increased BRS during PECO after electrically evoked isometric plantar flexion, replicated in the present study, fits well with this model, which can also be used to explain our present findings. When external compression is applied to the active muscle during PECO, some mechanoreceptor activation is restored, and the inhibitory effect of these afferents on cardiac vagal motoneuron excitability results in the suppression of the increased BRS seen with pure muscle chemoreflex activation in the control experiment.
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In conclusion, we have shown that external lower leg compression prevents the rise in BRS expected during a phase of local circulatory occlusion after calf muscle exercise. This result is compatible with muscle mechanoreceptor activation by calf muscle compression and supports the idea that this additional mechanoreceptor afferent activity can modify baroreflex-driven excitation of cardiac vagal motoneurons.
| ACKNOWLEDGMENTS |
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| FOOTNOTES |
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The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. The article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.
| REFERENCES |
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