Novel therapeutic strategy against central baroreflex failure: a bionic baroreflex system

Central baroreflex failure in Shy-Drager syndrome and traumatic spinal cord injuries results in severe orthostatic hypotension and often confines the patient to the bed. We proposed a novel therapeutic strategy against central baroreflex failure: implementation of an artificial feedback control system able automatically to regulate sympathetic vasomotor tone, that is, a bionic baroreflex system (BBS). With the use of a rat model of central baroreflex failure, we developed the BBS and tested its efficacy.

Our prototype BBS for the rat consisted of a pressure sensor placed into the aortic arch, stimulation electrodes implanted into the greater splanchnic nerve, and a computer-driven neural stimulator. By a white noise approach for system identification, we first estimated the dynamic properties underlying the normal baroreflex control of systemic arterial pressure (SAP) and then determined how the BBS computer should operate in real time as the artificial vasomotor center to mimic the dynamic properties of the native baroreflex. The open-loop transfer function of the artificial vasomotor center was identified as a high-pass filter with a corner frequency of 0.1 Hz. We evaluated the performance of the BBS in response to rapid-progressive hypotension secondary to sudden sympathetic withdrawal evoked by the local imposition of a pressure step on carotid sinus baroreceptors in 16 anesthetized rats. Without the BBS, SAP rapidly fell by 49+/-8 mm Hg in 10 seconds. With the BBS placed on-line with real-time execution, the SAP fall was suppressed by 22+/-6 mm Hg at the nadir and by 16+/-5 mm Hg at the plateau. These effects were statistically indistinguishable from those of the native baroreflex system.

These results suggest the feasibility of a BBS approach for central baroreflex failure.