Blood Pressure Change in Intrafascicular Vagal Activities

Baroreflex plays a significant role in modulating blood pressure for the human body. It is known that activation of the vagal nerve related to baroreflex can lead to reductions of blood pressure. However, how the vagal activities quantitatively relate with blood pressure can hardly be achieved. Here fine carbon nanotube yarn (CNTy) electrodes were adopted for recording intrafascicular vagal activities, synchronized with measurement of arterial blood pressure in a rat. Together with a novel algorithm, the results preliminarily quantified that there were six clusters of neural spikes within recorded vagal activities, and the number of individual vagal spikes correspondingly varied with blood pressure. Especially for Cluster 2, the neural activations decreased with arterial blood pressure increasing. This study can shed lights on the quantified neural mechanism underlying the control of vagal activities on blood pressure, and guide the vagal-nerve neuromodulation for treating hypertension.