Individual relationship between heart rate and electromechanic systole in orthostatic test during autonomic blockade.

The aim of this work was to investigate the usefulness of the individual regression coefficients between the HR and the Q-A2 when studying their relationship during simultaneous changes in afterload and preload in combination with autonomic blockade. Twelve healthy male volunteers were studied in an orthostatic test done four times: without drugs (control test), after atropinization, after beta-blockade, as well as after combined beta-blockade and atropinization. The individual regression coefficients showed great inter-individual variation, and in average they were not significantly different in the four tests. However, it was observed that during the control test four, during the atropinization eight, during the beta-blockade three and during the combined beta-blockade and atropinization five individual regression coefficients were greater than -2.1, which is the regression coefficient used for the rate correction of the Q-A2 in males in the Weissler formula. It seems to use that the individual regression coefficents are useful in the evaluation of the relationship between the HR and the Q-A2 in pharmacological or physiological interventions, in which the intra-individual variation is great, and in which the number of subjects is often so small that group regressions are not very informative.