Explore the vast range of titles available.

Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder characterized by vasoocclusive crises. Although hypoxia and pulmonary disease are known risk factors for these crises, the mechanisms that initiate vasoocclusive events are not well known. To study the relationship between transient hypoxia, respiration, and microvascular blood flow in patients with sickle cell. We established a protocol that mimics nighttime hypoxic episodes and measured microvascular blood flow to determine if transient hypoxia causes a decrease in microvascular blood flow. Significant desaturations were induced safely by five breaths of 100% nitrogen. Desaturation did not induce change in microvascular perfusion; however, it induced substantial transient parasympathetic activity withdrawal in patients with sickle cell disease, but not controls subjects. Marked periodic drops in peripheral microvascular perfusion, unrelated to hypoxia, were triggered by sighs in 11 of 11 patients with sickle cell and 8 of 11 control subjects. Although the sigh frequency was the same in both groups, the probability of a sigh inducing a perfusion drop was 78% in patients with sickle cell and 17% in control subjects (P < 0.001). Evidence for sigh-induced sympathetic nervous system dominance was seen in patients with sickle cell (P < 0.05), but was not significant in control subjects. These data demonstrate significant disruption of autonomic nervous system balance, with marked parasympathetic withdrawal in response to transient hypoxia. They draw attention to an enhanced autonomic nervous system–mediated sigh–vasoconstrictor response in patients with sickle cell that could increase red cell retention in the microvasculature, promoting vasoocclusion.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is characterized by sudden onset of painful vaso‐occlusive crises (VOC), which occur on top of the underlying chronic blood disorder. The mechanisms that trigger VOC remain elusive, but recent work suggests that autonomic dysfunction may be an important predisposing factor. Heart‐rate variability has been employed in previous studies, but the derived indices have provided only limited univariate information about autonomic cardiovascular control in SCD. To circumvent this limitation, a time‐varying modeling approach was applied to investigate the functional mechanisms relating blood pressure (BP) and respiration to heart rate and peripheral vascular resistance in healthy controls, untreated SCD subjects and SCD subjects undergoing chronic transfusion therapy. Measurements of respiration, heart rate, continuous noninvasive BP and peripheral vascular resistance were made before, during and after the application of cold face stimulation (CFS), which perturbs both the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems. Cardiac baroreflex sensitivity estimated from the model was found to be impaired in nontransfused SCD subjects, but partially restored in SCD subjects undergoing transfusion therapy. Respiratory‐cardiac coupling gain was decreased in SCD and remained unchanged by chronic transfusion. These results are consistent with autonomic dysfunction in the form of impaired parasympathetic control and sympathetic overactivity. As well, CFS led to a significant reduction in vascular resistance baroreflex sensitivity in the nontransfused SCD subjects but not in the other groups. This blunting of the baroreflex control of peripheral vascular resistance during elevated sympathetic drive could be a potential factor contributing to the triggering of VOC in SCD. This study investigated the effect of cold face stimulation (CFS) on autonomic function in subjects with sickle cell disease (SCD), chronically transfused SCD subjects, and healthy controls. Using a time‐varying computational model, we found that cardiac baroreflex sensitivity was impaired in nontransfused SCD subjects, but partially restored toward healthy control levels in SCD subjects undergoing transfusion therapy. As well, CFS reduced vascular resistance baroreflex sensitivity in the nontransfused SCD subjects but not in the other groups.

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is a genetic disorder that is characterized by recurrent episodes of vaso-occlusive crisis (VOC) from the sickling behavior of red blood cells. Currently, no technique can distinguish the cause or predict the occurrence of a crisis accurately and reliably. One area which has rarely been studied in SCD patients is their autonomic nervous system (ANS). Since the ANS is responsible for the moment-to-moment control of the vascular tone, we hypothesized that the ANS plays an important role in the initiation of their VOC. Computational techniques, including spectral analysis of HRV and a model which characterizes the dynamics of baroreflex and respiratory-cardiac coupling, were used to assess cardiovascular autonomic control in SCD patients and normal control (CTL) subjects. These analysis techniques were applied to responses elicited from the subjects during the application of non-invasive and easily reproducible physiological interventions, such as transient-controlled hypoxia and the cold face test. Our results demonstrate impairment in the ANS in SCD patients. In particular, hypoxic responses in SCD subjects showed a significantly stronger parasympathetic withdrawal compared to the CTLs. Furthermore, the autonomic responses to the cold face stimulus in SCD subjects showed an absence of the shift to parasympathetic dominance, as evidenced in the CTLs. In addition to the HRV analysis, model-based assessment also revealed the absence of both arterial baroreflex and respiratory-cardiac coupling augmentations in SCD patients during the cold face stimulus, while in CTL subjects both mechanisms showed tendencies to increase during the test. During the data analysis period, we noticed that spontaneous sighs triggered marked periodic drops in peripheral microvascular perfusion. While the sigh frequency was the same in both groups, the probability of a sigh inducing a perfusion drop was significantly higher in SCD subjects in comparison to the CTLs. Evidence for sigh-induced sympathetic nervous system dominance was seen in SCD subjects, but was not significant in CTL. HRV analysis suggested that the cardiac ANS responses to sighs are not different between the two groups, after adjusting for the effect of post-sigh respiration. However, the peripheral sympathetic response in SCD subjects appeared to be enhanced in this group relative to the CTLs; and, furthermore, sighs may play a role in initiation of vaso-occlusive events in this group of patients. In brief, all assessments we performed in this study suggested that the ANS responses to perturbations in SCD patients are more biased toward parasympathetic withdrawal and sympathetic activation, compared to normal controls. The complete mechanism is still a topic of investigation. Thus far, we have shown a relationship between the degree of this abnormality and the degree of both the anemia and infection/inflammation. We suspect that a mechanism related to the inflammatory reflex might play an important role in the ANS impairment in this group of patients. In conclusion, this study draws attention to an enhanced ANS-mediated peripheral sympathetic driven vasoconstriction in SCD that could increase red cell retention in the microvasculature, promoting vaso-occlusion. This cascade of events could be the mechanism which triggers the VOC.