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J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg 2003;126:1792-1797
© 2003 The American Association for Thoracic Surgery

Cardiopulmonary support and physiology

Surgery modifies cardiac sensory transduction

^a Department of Cardiology, Technical University RWTH, Aachen, Germany
^b Department of Pediatrics, Faculty of Medicine, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
^c Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, University de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada

Received for publication June 24, 2002; revisions received October 21, 2002; accepted for publication January 14, 2003.

^* Address for reprints: J. A. Armour, MD, PhD, Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine, Université de Montréal, Montréal, Québec, Canada, H4J 1C5
JA-Armour{at}crhsc.ca

OBJECTIVE: We sought to determine whether cardiac surgery, specifically the placement of an incision within a ventricular wall, affects the capacity of regional cardiac sensory nerve terminals (neurites) to transduce the local cardiac milieu.

METHODS: The capacity of sensory neurites in the right ventricular outflow tract associated with afferent neurons in nodose ganglia to transduce their mechanical and chemical milieu was studied in 11 anesthetized pigs before and after performing a local ventriculotomy.

RESULTS: Right ventricular outflow tract sensory neurites associated with 23 nodose ganglion afferent neurons were identified that transduced local mechanical deformation along with substance P. The capacity of these sensory neurites to transduce these stimuli was almost totally obtunded after local ventriculotomy.

CONCLUSIONS: The capacity of afferent neurons to transduce the cardiac milieu can be modified by cardiac surgical interventions. This may have negative implications with respect to how the entire cardiac neuronal hierarchy transduces alterations in the cardiac milieu postsurgery. This fact should be taken into account when contemplating the placement of cardiac incisions during surgery.