ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a contemporary review of the properties of the arterial baroreceptors as they have been determined from in vitro and in vivo isolated preparations. Arterial baroreceptors respond to the distortion of their endings caused by the distension of the wall of the artery that they innervate. Even casual examination of the pattern of discharge recorded from arterial baroreceptors in a conscious animal suggests a marked dependence on both the mean pressure and the rate of rise and fall during spontaneous changes in the arterial pressure pulse. One approach to gain information about the static and dynamic properties of the receptors has been to examine the discharge of single baroreceptor fibers in response to step changes in pressure. The static and dynamic sensitivities of baroreceptors have been ascribed to viscoelastic properties of the receptor tissue complex and a number of models have been developed to describe and account for these characteristics.
