Peripheral Receptors Affecting Breathing and Cardiovascular Function in Non-Mammalian Vertebrates

Most vertebrates show respiratory and circulatory reflexes which can be traced to stimulation of various extero- or interoceptors. Widely distributed groups of exteroceptors, with a variety of stimulus modalities, are associated with defence reflexes which protect the respiratory passages and gas exchange surfaces. Other exteroceptors are associated only with the gas exchange surfaces. These are either mechanoreceptors or chemoreceptors and have a range of different dynamic characteristics, but are none-the-less amazingly uniform in their role in control of the normal breathing pattern. Intravascular receptors stimulated by the arterial blood pressure are located on all the gills in fishes, yet appear to be restricted to the pulmocutaneous arteries in anuran amphibians and to the truncal region or aortic root in reptiles and birds. On the other hand, the distribution of glomus-sustentacular-nerve cell complexes, associated with intravascular chemoreception, appears to be much more diffuse in higher than lower vertebrates. The wide distribution of these cell complexes may be attributed to their embryological origin from neural crest cells. Even so, the presence of these complexes does not appear to be essential for respiratory responses to environmental hypoxia since they have not been located in teleost fishes. The role of peripheral receptors in controlling cardiovascular and respiratory functions, under steady state conditions in non-mammalian vertebrates, is not well defined and it may be that they are only modulators of circulatory and respiratory patterns arising from hormonal or humoral effects on the central nervous system.

Reflex circulatory changes due to the afferent stimulation of cat pericoronary nerve

Two different types of circulatory reflexes evoked by electrical stimulation of afferent fibers in the left pericoronary nerves were studied in anesthetized cats. A depressor response (-32.5 mmHg) with bradycardia (-48.7 beats/min) in 21 of 31 cats was mediated by the C fibers in the right vagal cardiac nerve trunk. The efferent pathway for the bradycardia was in caudal cardiac branches of the right vagus. Neither sympathetic denervation to the heart nor atropine attenuated the hypotensive response significantly, suggesting that the depressor response results from reflex inhibition of peripheral sympathetic activity. A pressor reflex without heart rate change was observed either when the vagi were blocked or when the distribution of vagal afferents in the pericoronary nerve was considered to be small. The pressor reflex was mainly mediated by the afferent C fibers within the left cardiac sympathetic nerves. The depressor response was enhanced by sympathectomy, suggesting the sympathetic counteraction on the inhibitory vagal afferents, Similarly, an enhancement of the pressor reflex by vagal blockade was observed, indicating tonic vagal restraint on excitatory sympathetic reflexes.