REDUCTION OF OXYGEN CONSUMPTION DURING CARDIAC INHIBITION

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Abstract
The possibility that vagal inhibition can reduce the 0 consumption below the resting level was tested on a vagus-auricle turtle preparation. Inhibition of the auricles was accompanied by a depression, increasing with the strength of vagus stimulation, and still more with simultaneous stimulation of both vagi, of 0 consumption below the resting level (84% of resting O utilization extreme limit found). The changes recorded are probably accompaniments, not essential features, of cardiac inhibition. The findings are incompatible with the potassium theory; they indicate (1) that, contrary to the Gaskell "anabolic" theory, inhibition is to be associated with a suspension or at least a diminution of normal metabolic processes; and (2) that the so-called "positive variation," the electrical potential change which accompanies vagus inhibition, is a relative change due in reality to a decrease in the "negativity" which is an inevitable accompaniment of normal metabolic processes during activity, which changes pari passu with changes in their intensity. Vagus inhibition thus by suppressing metabolic processes induces decreased negativity and therefore relative positivity.

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