Analysis of heart rate-based control of arterial blood pressure

Vagal control of the heart is the most rapidly responding limb of the arterial baroreflex. We created a mathematical model of the left heart and vascular system to evaluate the ability of heart rate to influence blood pressure. The results show that arterial pressure depends nonlinearly on rate and that changes in rate are of limited effectiveness, particularly when rate is increased above the basal level. A 10% change in heart rate from rest causes a change of only 2.4% in arterial pressure due to the reciprocal relation between heart rate and stroke volume; at higher rates, insufficient filling time causes stroke volume to fall. These findings agree well with published experimental data and challenge the idea that changes in heart rate alone can strongly and rapidly affect arterial pressure. Possible implications are that vagally mediated alterations in inotropic and dromotropic state, which are not included in this model, play important roles in the fast reflex control of blood pressure or that the vagal limb of the baroreflex is of rather limited effectiveness.