Short‑term vagal nerve stimulation improves left ventricular function following chronic heart failure in rats

Li,Yan; Xuan,Yan‑Hua; Liu,Shuang‑Shuang; Dong,Jing; Luo,Jia‑Ying; Sun,Zhi‑Jun

doi:10.3892/mmr.2015.3597

Short‑term vagal nerve stimulation improves left ventricular function following chronic heart failure in rats

Authors:
- Yan Li
- Yan‑Hua Xuan
- Shuang‑Shuang Liu
- Jing Dong
- Jia‑Ying Luo
- Zhi‑Jun Sun
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Affiliations: Department of Geriatrics, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110004, P.R. China, Department of Cardiology Medicine, Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University, Shenyang, Liaoning 110004, P.R. China
Published online on: April 7, 2015 https://doi.org/10.3892/mmr.2015.3597
Pages: 1709-1716
Copyright: © Li et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License [CC BY_NC 3.0].

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Abstract

Increasing numbers of animal and clinical investigations have demonstrated the effectiveness of long‑term electrical vagal nerve stimulation (VNS) on chronic heart failure (CHF). The present study investigated the effects of short‑term VNS on the hemodynamics of cardiac remodeling and cardiac excitation‑contraction coupling (ECP) in an animal model of CHF following a large myocardial infarction. At 3 weeks subsequent to ligation of the left coronary artery, the surviving rats were randomized into vagal and sham‑stimulated groups. The right vagal nerve of the CHF rats was stimulated for 72 h. The vagal nerve was stimulated with rectangular pulses of 40 ms duration at 1 Hz, 5 V. The treated rats, compared with the untreated rats, had significantly higher left ventricular ejection fraction (54.86±9.73, vs. 45.60±5.51%; P=0.025) and left ventricular fractional shortening (25.31±6.30, vs. 15.42±8.49%; P=0.013), and lower levels of brain natriuretic peptide (10.07±2.63, vs. 19.95±5.22 ng/ml; P=0.001). The improvement in cardiac pumping function was accompanied by a decrease in left ventricular end diastolic volume (1.11±0.50, vs. 1.54±0.57 cm3; P=0.032) and left ventricular end systolic volume (0.50±0.28, vs. 0.87±0.36 cm3; P=0.007). Furthermore, the expression levels of ryanodine receptor type 2 (RyR2) and sarcoplasmic reticulum calcium adenosine triphosphatase (SERCA2) were significantly higher in the treated rats compared with the untreated rats (P=0.011 and P=0.001 for RyR2 and SERCA2, respectively). Therefore, VNS was beneficial to the CHF rats through the prevention of cardiac remodeling and improvement of cardiac ECP.

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