Cardiovascular responses during stimulation of hindlimb skeletal muscle nerves in anaesthetized rats

1. Cardiovascular responses during static skeletal muscle contraction in anaesthetized rats appear to be contradictory. The present study attempted to explain such variations by stimulating different peripheral nerves supplying the hindlimb skeletal muscles using anaesthetized Sprague-Dawley rats. 2. Muscle contractions were evoked by a 30 s stimulation of the sciatic, tibial, peroneal nerves or the sciatic nerve with transected peroneal branch at threefold the motor threshold, 0.1 msec duration and 40 Hz frequency. 3. Contractions during stimulation of the tibial or the sciatic nerve with severed peroneal branch evoked similar increases in arterial pressure and heart rate. Following stimulation of the tibial nerve, blood pressure, heart rate and muscle tension increased by 23 +/- 3 mmHg, 31 +/- 5 b.p.m. and 789 +/- 34 g, respectively. For the sciatic nerve with transected peroneal branch, increases the respective increases were 27 +/- 5 mmHg, 32 +/- 6 b.p.m. and 802 +/- 43 g. In contrast, peroneal nerve stimulation produced depressor and bradycardic responses of -22 +/- 5 mmHg and -40 +/- 9 b.p.m., respectively. Interestingly, intact sciatic nerve stimulation elicited pressor, depressor or no responses (average being -10 +/- 8 mmHg), along with a consistent increase in heart rate of 24 +/- 7 b.p.m. 4. The results demonstrate that static muscle contraction following stimulation of the tibial or sciatic nerve with transected peroneal branch, elicits consistent increases in blood pressure and heart rate. Furthermore, stimulation of the peroneal nerve elicits a depressor response, while stimulation of the intact sciatic nerve evokes variable cardiovascular responses. Overall, anaesthetized rats can be excellent models to study the variable cardiovascular responses during activation of group III and/or group IV muscle afferents.