Sunday, September 21, 2014

Methods of analysis and physiological relevance of rhythms in sympathetic nerve discharge.

Barman SM, Kenney MJ. Clin Exp Pharmacol Physiol. 2007 Apr;34(4):350-5.
As we all figured out at a recent meeting, I'm desperately in need a crash course in sympathetic nerve and RVLM unit coherence analysis. So I did the only thing I know how to do; I found a review paper from Dr. Barman and started reading. This review gives some background on frequency analysis and shows how all the burst we see in our splanchnic nerve recordings can be examined and linked to respiratory or cardiovascular rhythms, or both. Figure 1 (included) is very simplified, but it shows how a fast Fourier transformations can pull apart one complicated waveform and show the contribution of different sine waves, or rhythms. Baby steps.
It gets a bit more complicated from there, immediately going in to how different nerves can be affected by the same stimuli. It also starts to hint at how coherence analysis can show that the nerves are showing the same influence and rhythmicity, even though the averaged nerve recordings look to be completely different. This is what I was really hoping to learn about, but I guess it's important to learn to walk before trying to run that marathon, right? -DH

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