The effects of hyperventilation on the reflex cardiac response from the carotid bodies in the cat.

1. Cats were anaesthetized with chloralose and urethane, and ventilated by an artificial intermittent negative pressure applied to the thorax. The carotid body chemoreceptors were isolated and perfused with oxygenated blood. They were stimulated by substituting hypoxic blood obtained from a donor animal.2. Stimulation of the carotid bodies during constant ventilation caused a bradycardia. When an artificial hyperventilation was induced during carotid body stimulation the heart rate increased.3. The increase in heart rate during hyperventilation, and while the carotid bodies were being stimulated, was due to at least two mechanisms, first a reflex from the lungs and secondly a fall in arterial blood P(CO) (2), both of which accompany the hyperventilation.