Crs. Machado et al., HEART AUTONOMIC INNERVATION DURING THE ACUTE-PHASE OF EXPERIMENTAL AMERICAN TRYPANOSOMIASIS IN THE DOG, The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene, 59(3), 1998, pp. 492-496
Citations number
26
Categorie Soggetti
Public, Environmental & Occupation Heath","Tropical Medicine
Heart autonomic innervation was studied in dogs during the acute phase
of the experimental infection with the Berenice-78 strain of Trypanos
oma cruzi. A glyoxylic acid-induced fluorescence method for catecholam
ines and a thiocholine method for demonstrating acetylcholinesterase a
ctivity showed the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nerve fibers, r
espectively. At day 34 of infection, moderate-to-intense rarefaction o
f both cholinergic and noradrenergic nerve fibers occurred in the atri
a of all animals coincident with moderate to intense myocarditis. In t
he ventricles, sympathetic denervation was clearly present only when t
he inflammatory processes were moderate to intense. Preliminary result
s on the chronic phase indicate that normal autonomic innervation coex
ists with an incipient chronic fibrosing myocarditis.