Heart failure and exercise training: effects to the cardiac autonomic nervous system

• Grant number: 14/06772-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2014
• End date: May 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Physiology - Physiology of Organs and Systems
• Principal Investigator: Lisete Compagno Michelini
• Grantee: Marcelo Hiro Akiyoshi Ichige
• Host Institution: Instituto de Ciências Biomédicas (ICB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The Cardiovascular system is controlled by local, neural and hormonal mechanisms that work in order to maintain the homeostasis of the organism, regulating the perfusion and the blood volume and pressure in physiologic and pathologic situations. In Heart Failure (HF) many of these mechanisms are activated in an attempt to compensate the dysfunctions caused by this disease. Initially these compensatory mechanisms are important to keep the patient stable but, in long term, they can be deleterious and characterize the non-compensated phase of HF. One of the most important characteristics of this phase is the disbalance between the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous systems with augmentation of neurohumoral responses. It is well established that the chronic activation of the sympathetic nervous system plays an important role in this disbalance, but there are few studies that analyze how the parasympathetic adapts to this situation. The aerobic exercise training has shown beneficial effects in this context, by reducing or reversing the sympathetic and neurohumoral activation, but, also, there is no information of its capacity in altering the parasympathetic tonus. As the exercise training is an efficient way of attenuating or reversing the loss of parasympathetic tone in hypertension and aging, it is our hypothesis that it may be also capable of preserving it in HF. The objective of this project is to determine, through the analysis of functional and hemodynamics parameters, the effects of the Heart Failure and the exercise training over the parasympathetic nervous system as well as to the sympathovagal balance to the heart of rats.

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

ICHIGE, MARCELO H. A.; SANTOS, CARLA R.; JORDAO, CAMILA P.; CERONI, ALEXANDRE; NEGRAO, CARLOS E.; MICHELINI, LISETE C.. Exercise training preserves vagal preganglionic neurones and restores parasympathetic tonus in heart failure. JOURNAL OF PHYSIOLOGY-LONDON, v. 594, n. 21, p. 6241-6254, NOV 2016. (14/06772-8, 11/51410-9)