Cardiovascular autonomic dysfunction in chronic kidney disease

The aims of this thesis were to: first, identify if a temporal impairment in baroreflex control of sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) occurs in a novel rodent model of chronic kidney disease (CKD), the Lewis Polycystic kidney (LPK) rat, and if deficits in the afferent, central and/or efferent components of the baroreflex exist; second, assess whether baroreflex dysfunction in CKD is differentially expressed in male and female genders and is contributed to by sex-dependent deteriorations in different components of the baroreflex pathway; third, investigate whether altered reflex control of the heart and sympathetic vasomotor tone relates to deficits in the vagal afferent pathway, a bioreceptor-independent mechanism that can similarly modulate efferent autonomic nerve activity; and fourth, to examine the hypothesis that ongoing elevation of SNA is a key pathological feature of CKD using conscious dual recording of blood pressure (BP) and SNA in the LPK.