Fetal cardiac sympathetic activation is linked with maternal body mass index.

Background: Sympathetic over activity has been suggested to impact on the risk of cardiovascular diseases. The origin of abnormalities in the autonomic nervous system is unknown, but it is susceptible to environmental influences during the critical periods of human development.

Aims: To examine the influence of maternal characteristics on fetal cardiac autonomic nervous activation.

Inhaled nitric oxide treatment inhibits neuronal injury after meconium aspiration in piglets.

Background: Meconium aspiration-induced hypertensive lung injury is frequently associated with neuronal damage. Inhaled nitric oxide (iNO) is widely used in the treatment of pulmonary hypertension, but its effects on the brain are poorly known.

Aims: The aim of this study was to determine the effects of iNO treatment on the neuronal tissue after meconium aspiration.

Meconium aspiration induces oxidative injury in the hippocampus of newborn piglets.

Background: Meconium aspiration-induced hypertensive lung injury has been associated with neuronal damage in the newborn, but the mechanisms of the injury are poorly known.

Aims: The aim of the study was to determine the contribution of oxidative stress to the brain damage after pulmonary meconium contamination.

Study Design: Sixteen anesthetized and ventilated newborn piglets were studied for 6 h.

Marked fetal acidosis and specific changes in power spectrum analysis of fetal heart rate variability recorded during the last hour of labour.

Objective: To assess whether intrapartum acidosis affects specific components of fetal heart rate variability.

Design: Prospective clinical study.

Setting: Twelve Nordic delivery units.

Asphyxia aggravates systemic hypotension but not pulmonary hypertension in piglets with meconium aspiration.

Meconium aspiration and birth asphyxia are both separately connected to significant pulmonary and systemic hemodynamic changes in newborns, but, although these insults frequently coexist, their combined effects on the neonatal circulation are still controversial. To determine the pulmonary and systemic circulatory changes induced by pulmonary meconium contamination with concurrent asphyxia, 41 anesthetized and ventilated newborn piglets (10-12 d) were studied for 6 h. Eleven piglets were instilled with a bolus of human meconium intratracheally, and 10 piglets had meconium instillation with immediate induction of an asphyxic insult.

Docetaxel does not impair cardiac autonomic function in breast cancer patients previously treated with anthracyclines.

The effects of docetaxel treatment on autonomic cardiac function was studied with 24-h ECG recordings in breast cancer patients pretreated with anthracyclines. Twenty-four women were evaluated before docetaxel treatment and after 3-4 courses of docetaxel 100 mg/m(2). The heart rate, cardiac extrasystoles and heart rate variability (HRV) in both the time and frequency domain were assessed from 24-h ECG recordings.

Ramipril Enhances Autonomic Control in Essential Hypertension: A Study Employing Spectral Analysis of Heart Rate Variation.

We estimated the effect of an angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitor, ramipril, on the sympathetic and parasympathetic input to the sinoatrial node of hypertensive patients using spectral and time domain analysis of heart rate variation (HRV). The heart rate of patients with essential hypertension was recorded during spontaneous breathing at rest and during controlled deep breathing. The periodic HRV was quantified at low-frequency (0.