Our objectives were to investigate the acute responses of the heart rate variability (HRV) before, during and after the execution of different Vertical Jump (VJ) protocols and correlate the levels of sympathetic and parasympathetic modulation after the VJ execution with the performance variables in VJ. Eight male athletes (29±4.9 years; 186±8.6 cm; 24.8±2.1 kg.m-2; 12±1.2% body fat) of a team p...

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE Increased sympathetic activity is associated with cardiovascular complications in stroke, but the role of the parasympathetic nervous system has not been carefully outlined. In the present study our purpose was to assess quantitatively autonomic cardiovascular disturbances in brain infarction by measuring cardiovascular autonomic reflexes. METHODS We studied the autonom...

THE adrenergic sympathetic system has been shown to exert a considerable effect on the intra-ocular pressure (Greaves and Perkins, 1952). We know, however, that cholinergic drugs are often effective in lowering the intraocular pressure in glaucoma so that it is possible that the parasympathetic system may also play a part in the control of the tension of the eye. Since the third cranial nerve c...

BACKGROUND Premature very low birthweight (VLBW) infants are born with an underdeveloped parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) which may limit their ability to respond adequately to feeding and may limit their capacities for extrauterine growth and development. OBJECTIVES To describe the patterns of autonomic response to feeding and identify relationships between change in heart period variabi...

Outside of the tropics, environmental conditions fluctuate in a generally predictable manner across the year. Many small mammals have evolved mechanisms, such as seasonal breeding and annual adjustments in physiology, morphology, and behavior, that promote winter survival when food is scarce and thermoregulation is challenging. Photoperiod (day length) is a cue used by many seasonal breeders to...

The autonomic nervous system has a craniosacral parasympathetic and a thoracolumbar sympathetic pathway (fig 1) and supplies every organ in the body. It influences localised organ function and also integrated processes that control vital functions such as arterial blood pressure and body temperature. There are specific neurotransmitters in each system that influence ganglionic and post-ganglion...

BACKGROUND In adults, increased sympathetic and decreased parasympathetic nervous system activity are associated with a less favorable metabolic profile. Whether this is already determined at early age is unknown. Therefore, we aimed to assess the association between autonomic nervous system activation and metabolic profile and its components in children at age of 5-6 years. METHODS Cross-sec...

Cholinergic control of the heart is exerted by two distinct branches; the autonomic component represented by the parasympathetic nervous system, and the recently described non-neuronal cardiomyocyte cholinergic machinery. Previous evidence has shown that reduced cholinergic function leads to deleterious effects on the myocardium. Yet, whether conditions of increased cholinergic signaling can of...

Study of autonomic nervous system activity in chronic liver disease has aroused great interests due to its increasing prevalence due to various etiologies. The present study was undertaken to assess the autonomic nervous system activity in chronic liver disease patients by five standard autonomic function tests. Forty patients (20 with alcoholic liver disease and 20 with nonalcoholic liver dise...

The aim of this study was to examine rat thymus innervation using denervation techniques and to explore the related micro-anatomical localization of dopamine, D1, D2 receptors and dopamine membrane transporter (DAT). In the thymus subcapsular region, the parenchymal cholinergic fibers belong exclusively to phrenic nerve branching. No somatic phrenic nerve branching was detected in any other ana...