The ventricular depolarization gradient: effects of exercise, pacing rate, epinephrine, and intrinsic heart rate...

A new pacing technique is described that permits high fidelity recording of the paced ventricular evoked response, including cardiac depolarization. Integration of the paced R wave yields the ventricular depolarization gradient (GD), which is dependent on activation sequence and the spatial dispersion of activation times. GD was studied in 27 dogs to determine the effects of treadmill exercise at fixed rate pacing (n = 10), elevation of heart rate in the absence of stress (n = 20), epinephrine at fixed rate (n = 6), and exercise in the presence of normal chronotrophic response (n = 7). Low level exercise (1 mph, 2 min, 15 degrees) at a fixed heart rate produced significant (P less than 0.0005) decreases in GD that averaged -10.8 +/- 4.0% (mean +/- SD). The rate of change in GD was faster at the onset of exercise than at its cessation (P less than 0.0005). Artificial elevation of heart rate at rest produced significant (P less than 0.0005) increases in GD; mean sensitivity of GD to rate was 0.27 +/- 0.12%/beats/min. Intravenous injection of epinephrine produced significant (P less than 0.001) decreases in GD at two dosage levels (2.5 and 5.0 micrograms/kg) when evaluated at two baseline pacing rates (150 and 190 beats/min); mean changes in GD were -20.64 +/- 0.53% (2.5 micrograms/kg at 150 beats/min), -25.19 +/- 4.20% (5.0 micrograms/kg at 150 beats/min), -14.18 +/- 5.19% (2.5 micrograms/kg at 190 beats/min), and -24.22 +/- 4.94% (5.0 micrograms/kg at 190 beats/min). Sensitivity of GD to epinephrine was dose-dependent (P less than 0.01) at each baseline rate, but was independent (P greater than 0.05) of the rate itself. In the presence of a normal chronotropic response, GD remained unchanged (P greater than 0.5) during exercise in spite of significant elevation in heart rate (105.0 to 167.1 beats/min, P less than 0.001). These data suggest the presence of an intrinsic negative-feedback control mechanism that maintains GD constant in the healthy heart during homeostatic disturbance. Applications in closed-loop rate adaptive pacing are described.