Effects of epinephrine, acetylcholine and vasodilators on the coronary blood flow of atherosclerotic rabbits.

In the studies on coronary circulation mostly normal animals have been subjected to the experimental investigation. It seems important to investigate the effects of drugs on the coronary vascular bed in animals with atherosclerosis. Rinzler et al. (1) demonstrated that in atherosclerotic rabbits intravenous ergonovine produced electrocardiographic changes characteristic of coronary insufficiency. Further, Karp et al. (2) presented evidence that ergonovine decreased the rate of coronary flow in all atherosclerotic heart, whereas it increased the flow in a majority of the normals. In the present experiments atherosclerosis was induced by feeding cholesterol in rabbits. The heart isolated from the atherosclerotic rabbits was perfused by using donor animals as described previously (3). Effects of epinephrine, acetylcholine and other drugs on the rate of coronary inflow of the cholesterol-fed rabbit heart were investigated by comparing with those of the normal rabbits.