[General principles of heart rate control during burst stimulation of the vagus nerve in various animals]

In experiments on frogs, rats, rabbits, cats, dogs and simians the synchronization of cardiac and vagal rhythms was achieved during stimulation of vagus nerve. The relative bounds of the synchronization ranges were not dependent on the species of animal or level of sympathetic activity. In this connection, the whole variety of the cardiochronotropic reactions in vertebrates may be described with a general mathematical equation: B = A (0.769-0.098 log2N), where A is a current heart rate, B--the heart rate during the vagus nerve stimulation with bursts of N supramaximal pulses.