Pathophysiological interactions of ventilation, arousals, and blood pressure oscillations during cheyne-stokes respiration in patients with heart failure.

Abstract

Arousals from sleep can be associated with increases in blood pressure (BP). However, it is uncertain whether this is due to a direct effect of arousals on BP, or is secondary to respiratory stimuli present at the time of the arousal. Cheyne-Stokes respiration (CSR) in patients with congestive heart failure (CHF) provides unique conditions that may allow these two possibilities to be distinguished. In CSR, the apnea-hyperpnea cycle can be dissociated from arousals because when CSR occurs during wakefulness, it does so in the absence of arousals, and when it occurs during sleep, arousals occur either at the termination of apnea (early arousals) or several breaths after the onset of hyperpnea ..