Neonatal sympathoadrenal response to acute hypoxia: impairment after experimental intrauterine growth retardation.

Sympathoadrenal system function may be altered following intrauterine growth retardation (IUGR). We tested the hypothesis that the growth-retarded newborn rat pup has increased basal sympathoadrenal activity under normoxic conditions and a blunted sympathoadrenal response to acute hypoxia. IUGR was established by uterine artery ligation on d 18 of gestation in Sprague-Dawley rats. Growth-retarded pups were chosen as those whose birth wt was more than 2 x SD below the mean birth wt of control pups delivered to sham-operated dams. At 24 +/- 12 h of age cardiac sympathetic neuronal activity (CSNA) was determined by 3H-norepinephrine tracer and alpha-methyltyrosine techniques. Adrenal medullary catecholamine synthesis (CAT SYN) was measured by 14C-tyrosine precursor methods, and adrenal catecholamine release (CAT REL) was determined using alpha-methyl-tyrosine. IUGR and control pups were studied over a 120-min period of normoxia or hypoxia (FiO2 = 0.09). Under normoxic conditions, the IUGR pups had increased CSNA and increased adrenal CAT SYN and CAT REL compared to controls. Adrenal CAT REL in normoxic IUGR pups was selective for epinephrine. In response to acute hypoxia, control pups had increased CSNA and increased adrenal CAT SYN and CAT REL compared to normoxic controls, with the proportion of norepinephrine and epinephrine released mimicking the ratio of the two amines in the adrenal. In contrast, in hypoxic IUGR pups CSNA and adrenal CAT SYN did not increase, and norepinephrine alone was released from the adrenal medulla.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)