Receptor antagonists as tools for structural measurement in psychophysiology

This paper proposes the structural measurement of autonomic cardiovascular activation components. In a double-blind cross-over design 48 male subjects received either placebo or a combination of 2 out of 3 partial autonomic blockers (p.o.); an alpha-1-adrenergic (indoramin), an unselective beta-adrenergic (propranolol), or a cholinergic antagonist (atropine). During each of the four sessions, the same seven tasks were presented (speech, mental arithmetic, handgrip, signal detection, loud noise, cold pressor, and an anticipation period). Based on a formal model of cardiovascular activation, estimates of the parameters of the model were obtained. The resulting regulatory patterns quantitatively revealed the effects of an alpha-adrenergic, three beta-adrenergic and a cholinergic activation component on 22 cardiovascular variables.