Experiments were designed to detect regional disruptions of adrenergic neurons in the hearts of living dogs. The neuron disruption was achieved by the application of phenol to the epicardium of the left ventricle. Evidence for denervation was the reduction in endogenous norepinephrine (NE) concentrations in the myocardium beneath the region of phenol treatment and toward the apex. Radiolabeled ...

BACKGROUND Increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system contributes significantly to the pathophysiology of heart failure. However, cardiac efferent sympathetic function has not been well characterized in this disorder. In this study, we evaluated cardiac sympathetic innervation using [123I]metaiodobenzylguanidine (MIBG) and compared this with left ventricular (LV) tissue norepinephrine...

A58-year-old man who had had Parkinson’s disease for many years was referred to the Department of Cardiology because of progressive and severe symptoms of orthostatic hypotension. Examination revealed a drop in systolic blood pressure on standing of 25 mm Hg. Heart rate at rest was 84 bpm, and it increased to 88 bpm on standing. Cardiac examination showed no abnormalities. 2D echocardiography w...

The sympathetic nervous system (SNS) is important in cardiac pathophysiology. By increasing heart rate and arterial blood pressure, the SNS plays a central role to adapt cardiac performance to conditions of increased external needs. Accordingly, a sympathetic surge instantaneously ameliorates left ventricular (LV) contractility and relaxation, abruptly increasing cardiac working capacities. How...

objective(s): iodine-123 metaiodobenzylguanidine (123i-mibg) myocardial scintigraphy has been used to evaluate cardiac sympathetic denervation in lewy body disease (lbd), including parkinson’s disease (pd) and dementia with lewy bodies (dlb). the heart-tomediastinum ratio (h/m) in pd and dlb is significantly lower than that in parkinson’s plus syndromes and alzheimer’s disease. although this ra...

PURPOSE We performed 123I-MIBG (MIBG) myocardial scintigraphy twice in patients with non-insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus (NIDDM) to investigate whether MIBG distribution was improved by pertinent clinical control. To determine the influential factors for MIBG distribution, we investigated the association between various clinical parameters and the serial change in MIBG uptake parameters. ...