Development of artificial bionic baroreflex system

The baroreflex system is the fastest mechanism in the body to regulate arterial pressure. Because the neural system (i.e., autonomic nervous system) mediates the baroreflex and the system operates under the closed-loop condition, the quantitative dynamic characteristics of the baroreflex system remained unknown until recently despite the fact that a countless number of observational and qualitative studies had been conducted. In order to develop the artificial baroreflex system, i.e., the bionic baroreflex system, we first anatomically isolated the carotid sinuses to open the baroreflex loop and identified the open-loop transfer function of the baroreflex system using white noise pressure perturbations. We found that the baroreflex system is basically a lowpass filter and remarkably linear. As an actuator to implement the bionic baroreflex system, we then stimulated the sympathetic efferent nerves at various parts of the baroreflex loop and identified the transfer functions from the stimulation sites to systemic arterial pressure. We found that the actuator responses can be described remarkably well with linear transfer functions. Since transfer functions of the native baroreflex and of the actuator were identified, the controller that is required to reproduce the native baroreflex transfer function can be easily derived from those transfer functions. To examine the performance of bionic baroreflex system, we implemented it animal models of baroreflex failure. The bionic baroreflex system restored normal arterial pressure regulation against orthostatic stresses that is indistinguishable from the native baroreflex system.