The secretion of glucocorticoids (GCs) is a classic endocrine response to stress. Despite that, it remains controversial as to what purpose GCs serve at such times. One view, stretching back to the time of Hans Selye, posits that GCs help mediate the ongoing or pending stress response, either via basal levels of GCs permitting other facets of the stress response to emerge efficaciously, and/or by stress levels of GCs actively stimulating the stress response. In contrast, a revisionist viewpoint posits that GCs suppress the stress response, preventing it from being pathologically overactivated. In this review, we consider recent findings regarding GC action and, based on them, generate criteria for determining whether a particular GC action permits, stimulates, or suppresses an ongoing stressresponse or, as an additional category, is preparative for a subsequent stressor. We apply these GC actions to the realms of cardiovascular function, fluid volume and hemorrhage, immunity and inflammation, metabolism, neurobiology, and reproductive physiology. We find that GC actions fall into markedly different categories, depending on the physiological endpoint in question, with evidence for mediating effects in some cases, and suppressive or preparative in others. We then attempt to assimilate these heterogeneous GC actions into a physiological whole. (Endocrine Reviews 21: 55‐ 89, 2000)

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How do glucocorticoids influence stress responses? Integrating permissive, suppressive, stimulatory, and preparative actions.

Contemporary findings reveal that the multiple modes of autonomic control do not lie along a single continuum extending from parasympathetic to sympathetic dominance but rather distribute within a 2-dimensional space. The physiological origins and empirical documentation for the multiple modes of autonomic control are considered. Then a formal 2-dimensional conception of autonomic space is proposed, and a quantitative model for its translation into a functional output surface is derived. It is shown that this model (a) accounts for much of the error variance that has traditionally plagued psychophysiological studies, (b) subsumes psychophysiological principles such as the law of initial values, (c) gives rise to formal laws of autonomic constraint, and (d) has fundamental implications for the direction and interpretation of a wide array of psychophysiological studies.

Autonomic determinism: the modes of autonomic control, the doctrine of autonomic space, and the laws of autonomic constraint.

Research is reviewed concerning the interrelationships among cardiodynamics, blood pressure control mechanisms, somatic activity, and the stimulus parameter of active vs passive coping. Emerging evidence suggests that with passive coping such as classical aversive conditioning, the heart is more under vagal control which is directionally linked with somatic activity, while blood pressure is more dominated by vascular processes. With active coping such as shock avoidance, the heart is under greater sympathetic control which is directionally independent of concomitant somatic activity, while cardiac influences on blood pressure become more dominant. Several current psycho physiological issues are discussed including the possible significance of these effects for cardiovascular disease processes.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1469-8986.1976.tb00081.x

The Cardiovascular-Behavioral Interaction—As It Appears Today

http://img2.timg.co.il/forums/1_149537418.pdf

Behavioural, saliva cortisol and heart rate responses to different types of stimuli in dogs

EQUIL2: a BASIC computer program for the calculation of urinary saturation.

Neurophysiology and neuropharmacology of cardiovascular regulation and stress

Fasting urinary calcium and cAMP were determined in 45 control subjects, 51 patients with absorptive hypercalciuria, and 20 patients with renal hypercalciuria. The mean fasting urinary Ca was significantly higher in absorptive hypercalciuria than in the control group [0.077 ± 0.026 vs. 0.053 ± 0.027 (SD) mg/100 ml glomerular filtration (GF); P < 0.001]. Although the mean fasting urinary Ca of 0.174 ± 0.060 mg/100 ml GF and the value for cAMP in renal hypercalciuria were both significantly higher than those in other groups, the individual values for fasting urinary cAMP overlapped widely into the ranges found in the control and absorptive hypercalciuria groups. In the control group, fasting urinary calcium was inversely correlated with fasting urinary cAMP (P < 0.05). Values in absorptive hypercalciuria were within 2 SES of estimate for the control group, though they were higher in calcium and lower in cAMP. When the contribution of absorbed calcium was reduced by prior administration of sodium ce...

Fasting urinary calcium and adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate: a discriminant analysis for the identification of renal and absorptive hypercalciurias.

https://www.amjmed.com/article/0002-9343(80)90418-0/pdf

Propensity for spontaneous nucleation of calcium oxalate: Quantitative assessment by urinary FPR-APR discriminant score

Renal Oxalate Excretion in Calcium Urolithiasis

Alterations in heart rate (HR), left ventricular systolic pressure (LVP), and maximum rate of left ventricular pressure development (LV dP/dtmax) during a Sidman avoidance task were studied in eight chronically prepared dogs. Four of these animals comprised a nonstressed control group. In the experimental group, in addition to phasic increases in HR, LVP, and LV dP/dtmax during the avoidance period of each day, tonic increases in these measures were also observed over the 13 days of the experiment. Left ventricular systolic pressure was found to be least sensitive to the stress procedure inasmuch as the phasic changes were no longer present after the 10th day and tonic levels were within base-line values by the 13th day. When alterations in cardiac activity were observed in the nonstressed animals, there were decreases in function. It was concluded that controlled behavioral stress produces increased cardiac performance without increased bodily activity. It was also hypothesized that preavoidance increases in heart rate in experimental animals were the result of vagal influences on the heart, whereas avoidance increases in HR, LV dP/dtmax, and LVP were functions of increased beta-sympathetic activity on the heart and adaptive peripheral vascular changes.

Richard A. Galosy

Papers

Neurophysiology and neuropharmacology of cardiovascular regulation and stress

Fasting urinary calcium and adenosine 3',5'-monophosphate: a discriminant analysis for the identification of renal and absorptive hypercalciurias.

Propensity for spontaneous nucleation of calcium oxalate: Quantitative assessment by urinary FPR-APR discriminant score

Renal Oxalate Excretion in Calcium Urolithiasis

Cardiac changes during behavioral stress in dogs