ABSTRACT
Cardiovascular ailments and environmental substances have been clearly linked in the literature. To understand the effects of pollutants on the vascular system, underlying mechanisms and their effect on the regulatory receptor of the neurovascular tree must also be understood. The final outcome of pollutant injury to the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is malfunction of the cardiovascular system. Pollutant injury to the brain and head can result in a very complicated response in the chemically sensitive individual. The heart and mediastinum have a complex arrangement of autonomic innervation as well as neuroendocrine cells. Electrical stimulation and pollutant-mediated vasoconstriction effectively limit the metabolic vasodilation by the sympathetic fibers that innervate the heart and coronaries, resulting in tachycardia, increased myocardial constriction, and augmented myocardial oxygen consumption. Coronary spasm implies some pathological changes in the aforementioned mechanism that lead to prolonged vascular constriction.
