Evidence for a rate-sensitive regulatory mechanism in myogenic microvascular control

To reveal a possible rate-sensitive component in the myogenic control, changes of total and segmental vascular resistances in sympathectomized skeletal muscle in response to alteration of vascular transmural pressure (extravascular pressure) by 40 mmHg were compared when the pressure change was applied at two distinctly different rates (15 and 120 s). The papaverine-dilated vascular bed showed an entirely passive behaviour, whereas the normal, myogenically reactive vascular bed responded with active constriction upon transmural pressure increase and active dilation upon pressure decrease. These responses were especially pronounced in the microvessels where a clearcut two-component effector response was observed. The magnitude of the initial component was distinctly correlated to the rate at which the transmural pressure stimulus was applied, whereas the later steady state component during the static pressure change was rate-independent. At the high rate of pressure increase, the initial rate-dependent microvascular constrictor response was some ten times larger than the steady state response. These observations indicate the existence of a rate-sensitive as well as a static component in the myogenic response to changed transmural pressure, an interpretation strongly supported by a previous analogous study on isolated single-unit vascular smooth muscle (Johansson and Mellander 1975). It is concluded that the microvessels in skeletal muscle are highly responsive to myogenic stimuli and that emphasis should be placed on the dynamic rather than the static characteristics of the stimulus. Such rate-sensitivity in myogenic control would seem to facilitate prompt and proper vascular adjustments, for instance in myogenic autoregulation.