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Abstract
The carotid and aortic bodies are structures whose specialized function it is to respond
to changes in the chemical composition of the arterial blood by setting up afferent
impulses which enter the central nervous system with the glossopharyngeal and vagus
nerves, respectively.
The nerve impulses in question are stimulant to the medullary centers (respiratory,
vasomotor, and, in the case of the carotid body of the dog, cardioinhibitory). The
impulses from the stretch receptors of the carotid sinuses and aortic arch (carried
by the same nerves) are inhibitory to these centers (except the cardioinhibitory,
which is stimulated by them).
The chemically sensitive receptors (chemoreceptors) can be stimulated by anoxemia,
asphyxia, increased carbon dioxide tension, or increased hydrogenion concentration,
or by a variety of drugs and poisons which have no common chemical or physiologic
attribute although the list includes inhibitors of oxidations (cyanide, sulfide) and
substances with nicotinic properties (nicotine, lobeline, coniine, and choline and
its derivatives).
Reflexes from these structures are responsible for much, if not all, of the stimulant
effects of anoxia on respiration and circulation. They probably are not concerned
in the normal control of respiration, the sensitivity of the chemoreceptors to carbon
dioxide being much less than that of the centers unless the latter is depressed; in
that event these reflexes become an important factor in maintaining respiration.
An explanation that is in accord with existing information on the subject is that
the chemoreceptors represent a survival in relatively undifferentiated form of a reflex
mechanism originally developed for a water-breathing ancestral form. The ability of
these structures to set up a strong reflex stimulation to respiration when exposed
to an environment that would depress or paralyze nerve cells (severe anoxia, very
high carbon dioxide tension or acidity, deep narcosis) is probably related to their
primitive status and responsible for much, if not all, of their value to the organism.
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© 1940 Published by Elsevier Inc.
