RESUMO

NEW FINDINGS: What is the central question of this study? This study presents a new model for studying the rapid onset of severe, acute hyperkalaemia in rats with intact kidney function by administering an intragastric KCl load. What is the main finding and its importance? This new model of intragastric KCl load produces a reliable and reproducible model for studying the rapid onset of severe, acute hyperkalaemia in rats with intact kidney function. We report unprecedented rapid changes (30 min) in ECG, blood pressure and various arterial blood analyses with this new model, providing a solid foundation for future experiments in this field. ABSTRACT: A variety of animal models have been proposed to study hyperkalaemia, but most of them have meaningful limitations when the goal is to study the effect of potassium overload on healthy kidneys. In this study, we aimed to introduce a new approach for induction of hyperkalaemia in a reliable and reproducible animal model. We used intragastric administration of potassium chloride [KCl 2.3 M, 10 ml/(kg body weight)] to male Holtzman rats (300-350 g) to induce hyperkalaemia. The results showed that this potassium load can temporarily overwhelm the renal and extrarenal handling of this ion, causing an acute and severe hyperkalaemia that can be useful to study the effect of potassium imbalance in a variety of scenarios. Severe hyperkalaemia (>8 meqiv/l) and very profound ECG alterations, characterized by lengthening waves and intervals, were seen as early as 30 min after intragastric administration of KCl in rats. In addition, a transient increase in arterial blood pressure and time-dependent bradycardia were also seen after the KCl administration. No metabolic acidosis was present in the animals, and the potassium ion did not increase proportionally to chloride ion in the blood, leading to an increased anion gap. In conclusion, the results suggest that intragastric KCl loading is a reliable model to promote rapid and severe hyperkalaemia that can be used for further research on this topic.

Assuntos

Hiperpotassemia , Animais , Arritmias Cardíacas , Hiperpotassemia/etiologia , Rim , Masculino , Potássio , Cloreto de Potássio/farmacologia , Ratos

RESUMO

The literature is extensive on how hypertension affects the morphology and function of the central nervous system (CNS) and is being focused on multiple organ damage involving the kidneys, heart, endothelium and retina. Hypertension damage to the peripheral nervous system is less explored in the literature. We have previously shown morphometric alterations in large and small caliber myelinated fibers of nerves in the adult spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR). However, the functional correlation of these findings has not been explored. We performed an electrophysiological investigation of hind limb nerves in SHR of both genders in different ages. Normotensive Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats were used as controls. Electrophysiological recordings and determination of motor (MCV) and sensory (SCV) nerve conduction velocity were performed in the same animals at four different ages: 5, 8, 20 and 40 weeks after birth. Comparisons were made between ages, genders and animal strain. We showed a continuous body weight increase in adult life in all animals studied. MCV got stable at 20-week old hypertensive animals and continued to increase in normotensive ones. The SCV was constant between the ages of 20 and 40 weeks old in female SHR and decreased in male SHR while it continued to increase in WKY animals. The electrophysiological investigation of the nerves in WKY and SHR from both genders and different ages, associated with morphological and morphometric data from the literature suggest that hypertension affects the nerve function and might corroborate the development of a peripheral neuropathy.

RESUMO

Quantifying complexity from heart rate variability (HRV) series is a challenging task, and multiscale entropy (MSE), along with its variants, has been demonstrated to be one of the most robust approaches to achieve this goal. Although physical training is known to be beneficial, there is little information about the long-term complexity changes induced by the physical conditioning. The present study aimed to quantify the changes in physiological complexity elicited by physical training through multiscale entropy-based complexity measurements. Rats were subject to a protocol of medium intensity training ( n = 13 ) or a sedentary protocol ( n = 12 ). One-hour HRV series were obtained from all conscious rats five days after the experimental protocol. We estimated MSE, multiscale dispersion entropy (MDE) and multiscale SDiff q from HRV series. Multiscale SDiff q is a recent approach that accounts for entropy differences between a given time series and its shuffled dynamics. From SDiff q , three attributes (q-attributes) were derived, namely SDiff q m a x , q m a x and q z e r o . MSE, MDE and multiscale q-attributes presented similar profiles, except for SDiff q m a x . q m a x showed significant differences between trained and sedentary groups on Time Scales 6 to 20. Results suggest that physical training increases the system complexity and that multiscale q-attributes provide valuable information about the physiological complexity.