Stress, Catecholamines, and Cardiovascular Disease

Download or read book Stress, Catecholamines, and Cardiovascular Disease written by David S. Goldstein and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1995 with total page 584 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The starting point for understanding the roles of stress and catecholamines in cardiovascular disorders is a theory defining stress. This book presents a new homeostatic theory of stress and distress and uses it to explain how systems using the endogenous catecholamines - norepinephrine, epinephrine, and dopamine - and other effector systems maintain the internal environment during stress. The theory proposes coordinated activation of the body's several stress systems in primitively specific patterns during exposure to various stressors. Comparator homeostats interpret afferent information about specific physiological or chemical variables and regulate operations of the effector systems. Via a hierarchical mosaic of central nerve cell clusters, the brain constantly redefines homeostasis by resetting homeostats, especially during stress.