Citation:

Lewis, A., M. Campen, AND A. Farraj. Measuring Cardiovascular Function in Intact Experimental Models. Comprehensive Toxicology, 4th Edition. ELSEVIER, AMSTERDAM, Holland, 7:108-125, (2026).

Impact/Purpose:

This chapter discusses the utility of various techniques used to measure cardiovascular physiology in experimental whole organisms (i.e., rodent models) in cardiovascular toxicology research.  Increased understanding of such techniques, which are widely used in industry, academia, and government toxicology laboratories, including in ORD, as well their strengths and limitations may foster their proper use in the experimental setting and improve the translatability of data derived from such approaches to the human condition.  

Description:

Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of preventable death worldwide and is heavily influenced by exposure to chemical and non-chemical stressors in everyday life. Given the increasing need to identify the impacts of such stressors on normal cardiovascular function, researchers have continued to use comparative experimental models to better understand disease pathophysiology.  Rodents, such as rats and mice, are mammalian models with cardiovascular systems that share many similarities with that of humans, Importantly, such models enable measures of cardiovascular function in vivo, which provides invaluable insight into the impacts of exposures to stressors on the whole organism, with its intact metabolic, nervous, and immune systems, which are all key determinants of responsiveness to toxic agents. This chapter reviews the comparative cardiovascular biology of rodents and humans, the utility of key in vivo invasive and non-invasive methods, including electrocardiography, measures of blood pressure, left ventricular pressure, and cardiovascular structure and function using various imaging techniques, the advantages and disadvantages of such methods, and their utility in toxicity research going forward.  

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