# Blood Pressure Control During Exercise in Heart Failure

> **NIH NIH R01** · WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $696,588

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
 Heart failure is a global pandemic affecting over 26 million patients worldwide including over 5 million
Americans with over 550,000 newly diagnosed cases each year in the USA. The annual cost of treatment in
our country is approaching 40 billion dollars. The incidence of heart failure increases with age and is markedly
higher among minority populations. Therefore, heart failure presents a major health problem in the United
States as well as worldwide. Exercise intolerance is a classic symptom of heart failure. Often extreme
activation of the sympathetic nervous system occurs during exercise causing profound peripheral
vasoconstriction. High sympathetic activity is predictive of poor prognosis. Our recent studies have shown
that the kidney, skeletal muscle and even the heart become targets for vasoconstriction with this veritable
“sympathetic storm”. The mechanisms mediating this exaggerated activation of the sympathetic nervous
system during exercise in subjects with heart failure are poorly understood. This competing renewal proposal
is focused on expanding our investigations of altered neural control of cardiovascular function during exercise
in heart failure. We propose that sympathetic over-activation during exercise stems from activation of multiple
regional afferent nerves which combine to induce positive-feedback amplification of sympathetic activity
creating vicious cycles. The kidney, skeletal muscle and the heart become both the sources of afferent
activation of sympathetic activity and the targets of the increased vasoconstrictor tone. Further, depressed
arterial baroreflex buffering of these positive feedback scenarios contributes to the excessive sympatho-
activation. We will explore techniques aimed at lessening the activation of these regional afferents which
would thereby decrease the massive sympathetic activation. We will utilize our innovative and highly complex
conscious, chronically instrumented canine model. Our long term goal is to elucidate further the mechanisms
responsible for the heightened activation of the sympathetic nervous system during exercise in heart failure
and the functional consequences of these responses in integrative control of cardiovascular function. A major
strength of the proposal is our unique capability of simultaneous measurement of critical central and peripheral
hemodynamic parameters in real time at rest and during exercise in the same animals before and after
induction of heart failure. These longitudinally designed experiments will provide compelling new information
on the altered mechanisms of cardiovascular control during exercise in heart failure and may provide a basis
for ameliorating the excessive activation of the sympathetic nervous system during exercise in these patients.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10154185
- **Project number:** 2R01HL055473-23
- **Recipient organization:** WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Donal S O'Leary
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $696,588
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 1996-07-08 → 2025-03-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10154185

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10154185, Blood Pressure Control During Exercise in Heart Failure (2R01HL055473-23). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-23 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10154185. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*