Partition of carotid baroreceptor response in two-kidney renal hypertensive dogs

E. Koushanpour and R. Behnia Department of Physiology, Northwestern University Medical School, Chicago, Illinois 60611. This study evaluated the mechanism of carotid sinus baroreceptor resetting in two-kidney one-clip Goldblatt hypertension in dogs by partitioning the resetting between carotid sinus wall compliance and receptor neural elements. With dogs under halothane anesthesia, the left renal artery was constricted 70-80% with a Goldblatt clamp without disturbing the contralateral kidney. Ten weeks later, when mean blood pressure had risen to 151 +/- 6 mmHg (means +/- SE) compared with 105 +/- 5 mmHg in controls, we measured simultaneously whole nerve action potentials (N) and carotid sinus volume (V) during step changes in intrasinus pressure (P). Hypertensive N vs. P relationship was sigmoid shaped and shifted toward the P-axis compared with controls. Hypertensive V vs. P relationship was not significantly different from controls. The hypertensive N vs. V relationship derived from the composite plots of N vs. P and V vs. P was sigmoid shaped and shifted toward the V-axis compared with controls. These results suggest that the resetting of baroreceptors is due to changes in receptor properties rather than carotid sinus wall compliance.