Interaction of right and left carotid sinus baroreflexes in the dog

Carotid sinus reflex interactions were studied in 10 dogs anesthetized with pentobarbital sodium. The right and left carotid sinus regions were isolated and perfused at controlled pressures. Pressure in the right and left carotid sinuses were independently varied, and the resulting steady-state reflex changes in arterial pressure, heart rate, respiratory frequency, tidal volume, and total ventilation were measured. Reflex changes when carotid sinus pressure was changed on one side were strongly influenced by pressure in the contralateral carotid sinus (P < 0.05). Right carotid sinus gain was found to be 0.628 ± 0.058 at a left carotid sinus pressure of 50 mmHg and 0.148 ± 0.027 when left carotid sinus pressure was 200 mmHg. Similar results were found for left carotid sinus gain. Suppression was also found for heart rate, respiratory rate, tidal volume, and total ventilation. The hypothesis that rapid resetting of one carotid sinus baroreflex might influence responses from the other side was also tested. Although ipsilateral resetting was consistently observed, no contralateral component of the resetting was detected. An additional inhibitory summation between the right and left carotid sinuses was found such that simultaneous excitation of both receptors resulted in a smaller reflex response than did the sum of individual responses. Sympathetic denervation of the carotid sinus region had no effect.