Incommensurate frequencies of major vascular regulatory mechanisms.

The dynamic relationship among three major vascular control mechanisms that operate on large fractions of cardiac output: arterial baroreflex and renal and mesenteric autoregulation, was investigated in conscious rats. Wistar and spontaneously hypertensive rats were studied in their home cages 10 days after implantation of pulsed Doppler flow probes. There was an oscillation of blood pressure centered at 0.45 Hz that is associated with operation of arterial baroreflexes. Hindquarters blood flow displayed a featureless, "1/f' power spectrum, in which no autoregulatory or baroreflex signatures could be discerned, although active control of resistance over a wide range of frequencies was evident. The renal pressure - flow transfer function was dominated by an autoregulatory mechanism with a resonance peak at 0.25 +/- 0.01 Hz. In the mesenteric circulation an autoregulatory mechanism was seen with a resonance peak at 0.15 +/- 0.01 Hz and another active mechanism was seen above 0.2 Hz that appeared from its negative admittance phase to be a baroreflex. The center frequencies of mesenteric and renal autoregulation and of the arterial baroreflex were related in a ratio of 1 : 1.7 +/- 0.1 : 3.0 +/- 0.2 (approximately 4:7:12). Such relatively high order ratios can be expected to minimize the possibility of phase locking and (or) entrainment among the various control mechanisms.