Evidence that blood pressure controls heart rate in the chick embryo prior to neural control.

Blood pressure increases will increase heart rate in intact chick embryos, prior to the development of neural control. Similarly, in surgically isolated hearts, increases in intraventricular fluid pressure will increase the rate of beat. However, fluid pressure applied equally to both interior and exterior surfaces of the isolated heart does not result in increased heart rate. Therefore, we conclude that the increased pressure stretches the heart muscle and that this stretch stimulates the increased heart rate. While heart rate is clearly influenced by blood pressure, the reverse is not true. Propranolol reduces the heart rate to about half normal in intact embryos but does not significantly alter the blood pressure.