Carotid baroreceptor reflex in normotensive and hypertensive subjects.

1. A graded decrease and increase in carotid baroreceptor activity (induced by a varying pressure in a neck chamber) caused a linearly related increase and decrease in arterial blood pressure. This occurred in both normotensive and hypertensive subjects. 2. Decrease of carotid baroreceptor activity caused a greater increase of blood pressure in normotensive than in hypertensive subjects. Increasing the activity caused changes of similar magnitude in the two groups. 3. Decrease of baroreceptor activity also caused an increase in heart rate although increasing the activity of the reflex had little effect on heart rate, particularly in normotensive subjects. Thus the carotid baroreceptor effect on blood pressure does not always reflect that on heart rate and inference of one reflex response from measurement of the other may be in error.