Background: Congestive heart failure is a debilitating disease characterized by impaired cardiac function with accompanying activation of a variety of neural and hormonal counter-regulatory systems. Abnormal activity of the sympathetic nervous system and renin-angiotensin-aldosterone axis and a predisposition to the generation of fatal ventricular arrhythmias are often associated with the development of the disease. Although the underlying cause of sudden death in these patients remains to be unequivocally elucidated, abnormally increased cardiac sympathetic nervous activity may be involved.
Methods and results: Twenty-two patients with severe congestive heart failure (New York Heart Association functional class III or IV with left ventricular ejection fraction of 18 +/- 1%) and 29 healthy male volunteers participated in this study. By combining direct sampling of internal jugular venous blood via a percutaneously placed catheter with a norepinephrine and epinephrine isotope dilution method for examining neuronal transmitter release, we were able to quantify the release of central nervous system monoamine and indoleamine neurotransmitters and investigate their association with the increased efferent sympathetic outflow that is variably present in treated patients with this condition. Mean cardiac norepinephrine spillover was 145% higher in treated heart failure patients than in healthy subjects (P < .05), with norepinephrine release from the heart in 6 of 22 patients being more than the highest control value. Raised internal jugular venous spillover of epinephrine (26 +/- 12 versus 2 +/- 4 pmol/min, P < .05) and of norepinephrine and its metabolites (2740 +/- 480 versus 875 +/- 338 pmol/min, P < .05), indicative of increased central nervous system turnover of both catecholamines, occurred in cardiac failure and was quantitatively linked to the degree of activation of the cardiac sympathetic nervous outflow, as was the jugular overflow of the principal serotonin metabolite, 5-hydroxyindoleacetic acid.
Conclusions: An association between the degree of activation of central monoaminergic neurons and the level of sympathetic nervous tone in the heart was identified in treated patients with heart failure. Epinephrine neurons in the brain may contribute to the sympathoexcitation that is seen in this condition, with the activation of sympathoexcitatory noradrenergic neurons, most likely those of the forebrain, playing an accessory role.