Human Baroreflexes in Health and Disease

Abstract BL The first book devoted to human baroreflexes A comprehensive review of baroreflex involvement in human diseases, this book places the most recent understanding of human physiology solidly in the context of knowledge from animals. This book secures a place for human studies in the understanding of baroreflex physiology and pathophysiology and celebrates the advances made. By describing clearly the existing deficiencies in the understanding of baroreflex mechanisms, it points a way for future research in this exciting and important area of medical science. Nerve endings in the walls of the carotid sinuses and the aortic arch transduce arterial pressure changes and provide the central nervous system with a steady stream of encoded information. On the basis of this information, efferent autonomic neural activity is modulated finely, and the neurohumoral milieu of the heart and blood vessels is adjusted on a second-to-second basis. The arterial baroreflex may be the most important of the cardiovascular control mechanisms, because the baroreflex, above all other reflex mechanisms is the one whose speed is most adequate to respond rapidly to the abrupt transients of arterial pressure that occur in daily life. This book will help to fix a place for human studies in the understanding of baroreflex physiology and pathophysiology. It is intended as a celebration of the advances that have been made and, by describing clearly the existing deficiencies in the understanding of baroreflex mechanisms, it points a way for future research in this exciting and important area of medical science.