[The morphofunctional transformation of skeletal muscle as a consequence of electroneurostimulation training]. / Morfofunktsional'noe preobrazovanie skeletnoi myshtsy vsledstvie élektroneirostimuliatsionnoi trenirovki.

By means of histological and histochemical methods slices of biopsies of the canine musculus latissimus dorsi have been investigated after electroneurostimulation for three months through the thoracodorsal nerve in situ and after cutting its initial part. Frequency of contractions increases gradually from 30 up to 80 per 1 min every 2 weeks. The preparations are stained with hematoxylin--eosin. Histochemical reactions for adenosinetriphosphatase (ATPase) (incubational medium pH 4.3 and 10.3) and for acetylcholinesterase (AChE) are performed. The muscle, stimulated in situ, preserves its normal structure. Transformation of muscle contractions from fast to slow, as well as increasing AChE activity in myoneural synapses are revealed. The muscle, stimulated after its cutting at its beginning, is subjected to adipose dystrophy. Activity of ATPase and AChE do not differ from that in the control.

Changes in neural and humoral mechanisms of the heart in sudden death due to myocardial abnormalities.

Quantitative neurohistochemical study of adrenergic elements of the myocardium and the adrenal medulla in victims of sudden death revealed an unequal and focal depletion of catecholamines attributable to prior pathologic processes in the myocardium. The greatest changes in cardiac innervation were found in cases of acute myocardial infarction and alcoholic cardiomyopathy, and the adrenergic plexuses were better preserved in cases of coronary heart disease without focal myocardial changes. Ultrastructural study of cardiac innervation in patients who died suddenly showed more pronounced changes in the nerve plexuses of the sinus node than in the perinodal nerves of the working myocardium. The changes in coronary artery innervation were usually related to the severity of stenosis due to fibrous plaque; desympathization of the vessels and the adjoining myocardial zone was also found in cases with 50% or greater occlusion of the lumen. The bulk of chromaffinocytes were depleted and weakly luminescent in the adrenal glands of patients with acute myocardial infarction who died suddenly. In contrast, chromaffinocytes with moderate and bright luminescence were prevalent in cases of sudden death with scarring from previous myocardial infarction and with alcoholic cardiomyopathy. Ultrastructural and histochemical examinations demonstrated that changes in the neurons of sympathetic ganglia increased with more severe atherosclerotic lesions of the aorta and with greater changes in the vessels supplying the ganglia. In experiments on rabbits and dogs, both coronary artery ligation and electrostimulation produced cardiac fibrillation followed by a local increase in luminescence intensity of the myocardial nerve plexuses when their density remained high. Chemoreceptors located along the coronary vessels and pulmonary artery in dogs included small cells with bright fluorescence and adrenergic nerve fibers.

[Characteristics of myocardial cholinergic innervation and its species differences]. / Osobennosti kholinergicheskoi innervatsii miokarda i ee vidovye razlichiia.

By means of some neuromorphological and physiological methods, peculiarities of the cardiac cholinergic innervation have been studied in the rabbit, guinea pig, cat, rat and man. The mammalian myocardium (the man including) is heterogeneous in its parasympathetic innervation. There are no terminal cholinergic plexuses in the external and medial layers of the myocardial ventricles, their density is not the same in other myocardial area. According to the cholinergic plexus density gradient, various parts of the atrial myocardium are distributed as following: the anterior part of the atrioventricular node and the atrioventricular fasciculus, the sinuatrial node area, the atrial septum, the right and left atria. Heterogeneity mentioned for the terminal cholinergic plexus demonstrates that various myocardial parts are not similarly subjected to the cholinergic influences.

[Age-related changes in the cholin- and adrenergic innervation of the human heart]. / Vozrastnye izmeneniia kholi- i adrenergicheskoi innervatsii serdtsa cheloveka.

The hearts of 35 patients of different age have been studied. The cholinergic innervation reaches full differentiation by the age of 30, its involution begins after 50. The adrenergic innervation is most manifest in children, its involution begins from 30. After 60 the nervous plexuses of the heart are fully devoid of catecholamines. The sensitivity of the myocardium to adrenalin at different age levels is roughly the same.

[Prospects for studying myocardial contractility in human autopsy material]. / O perspektivakh izucheniia kontraktil'nosti miokarda na sektsionnom materiale cheloveka.

The experiments were carried out on isolated strips of the myocardium of the right atrium and on papillary muscles of the right ventricle from 11 subjects aged 5 to 87 years who died in car accidents, from asphyxia, CO poisoning, ischemic heart disease. The time between death and beginning of the experiment ranged within 1.5 to 60 hours. It was ascertained that the chronoinotropy of human heart strips as well as the reaction to adrenaline, noradrenaline and acetylcholine were similar to those obtained in animal experiments.

[Mediator stage in the functioning of the autonomic nervous system in pre- and postnatal ontogeny and the importance of its study for clinical application]. / Mediatornyi étap funktsionirovaniia vegetativnoi nervnoi sistemy v pre- i postnatal'nom ontogeneze i znachenie ego issledovanii dlia kliniki.

In 1972 a new definition "mediatory stage" in the development of the vegetative nervous system during ontogenesis was introduced and it was stated that at the prenatal stage in the heart, along the course of magistral vessels, and into other organs begin to sprout up at first nervous truncs lacking in mediators, and then, beginning from 8--9 weeks (in man), the mediators appear at first in cholinergic and then in adrenergic plexus (V. N. Shvalev et al., 1972). In clinical embryonal mortality is especially great during the stage of premediatory development, that corresponds to the period of placentation. The beginning of the mediatory stage (the 3d month of prenatal life) is characterized by an intensive differentiation of the neural apparatus in the heart and its innervated structures. At first cholinergic and then adrenergic nerve plexus are formed, nevertheless, by the time of birth these plexus, especially adrenergic ones are not yet fully differentiated. During the first year of life there is noted a rather high rate of so called "sudden death". During the following 3--4 years there is a new intensive rise in differentiation of the cardiac cholinergic and adrenergic nerve plexus and by the 6--8th year of age the density of these plexus reaches its maximum (about 10%). This index is constant up to 40 years of age, and then a noticeable decrease in the density of adrenergic plexus takes place, while that of cholinergic plexus remains rather constant. After 60 years of age an involution takes place at first in adrenergic and then in cholinergic plexus, and the "postmediatory" stage occurs. The problem of "sudden death" is closely connected with the changes described for the mediators in the cardiac and vascular plexuses (V. N. Shvalev, R. A. Stropus and E. K. Morozov, 1978).

[Age-related changes in the cholinergic and adrenergic nerve elements of the human heart and their status in cardiovascular pathology]. / Vozrastnye izmeneniia kholinergicheskikh i adrenergicheskikh nervnykh élementov serdtsa cheloveka i ikh sostoianie pri serdechno-sosudistoi patologii.

Histochemical studies of architectonics and mediator activity of cholinergic and adrenergic nerve plexuses in the myocardium of the auricles and right atrii of the heart were carried out. Both autopsy and biopsy materials: parts of right atrii from patient with congenital and rheumatic defects and atherosclerosis of the coronary arteries, were used. Age changes in the nerve plexus were found to include a decrease in the activity of acetylcholinesterase and the content of catecholamines followed by decreased density of the plexus itself. Perivascular fibrosis combined with changes of afferent and adrenergic elements was revealed. Coronary artery atherosclerosis enhances and aggravates functional and structural changes of cholinergic and adrenergic components of the nervous apparatus of the heart associated with age. Congenital heart diseases are accompanied by decreasing density of adrenergic nerve plexuses and decreased content of catecholamines in them, and rheumatic diseases by destruction of cholinergic and adrenergic components.