[Absence, in the hypertrophied rat heart caused by aortocaval fistula, of several metabolic and electrophysiological changes seen in other models of hypertrophy].

In this work, we compared the electrophysiological and metabolic parameters of a volume overload model of cardiac hypertrophy (aorto-caval fistula) with those of two other models of hypertrophy (aortic stenosis and isoproterenol pretreatment). In these last models, a prolongation of action potential and a decrease of myocardial ATP content are observed. However, these alterations are not shown in the aorto-caval fistulated animals while their heart are well hypertrophied. The amplitude increase of phase 3 AP seemed to be a common factor of these models of cardiac hypertrophy.