Roles of cephalic Na+ concentration and urodilatin in control of renal Na+ excretion.

Effects on renal function of an increase in the concentration of sodium in the blood supplying the head were investigated in water-diuretic conscious dogs in which the sodium and water contents were controlled by separate servo-mechanisms. A selective 2% increase in the sodium concentration of the carotid blood was achieved by a split-infusion technique including infusions of hypertonic saline into both carotid arteries and water into a jugular vein at rates making the combined infusate isotonic. This procedure caused a 34-fold increase in renal sodium excretion concomitant with a fourfold increase in the rate of urinary excretion of urodilatin. A comparable isotonic volume expansion (isotonic saline infusion into carotid arteries and jugular vein) caused a significantly smaller (13-fold) increase in urinary rate of excretion of sodium (P less than 0.02) and no increase at all in the excretion of urodilatin. It is hypothesized that cephalic sodium concentration receptors regulate the rate of excretion of sodium via urodilatin even under the present slightly hypotonic conditions.