Advances in Physiological Sciences, Volume 27: Factors Influencing Adrenergic Mechanisms in the Heart is a collection of papers presented at the 1980 satellite symposium of the 28th International Congress of Physiological Science, held in Visegrád, Hungary. This symposium covered the achievements that modify the traditional views of adrenergic regulation of cardiac muscle and coronary blood vessels.

This volume is composed 18 chapters and begins with a discussion of the effect of adrenaline on some aspects of electrical and mechanical activity in the frog heart. The subsequent chapters describe the heart rate changes in neurogenic hypertension, the developmental changes of the catecholamine-induced chronotropic responses related to the blood pressure responses, and the inverse reciprocal regulation of cardiac post-synaptic a- and b-adreneceptors by thyroid hormones. Other chapters deal with the mechanism of adenosine-induced inhibition of adrenergic neurotransmission in the ventricular myocardium; the comparative morphological studies of localized exogenous adenosine in heart muscle; adenosine sensitivity of canine coronaries; and the significance of nickel ion in the coronary vascular tone regulation. These chapters are followed by discussions of the physiological and pathological effects of beta modulator release and the histological study of experimental diabetic angiopathy. The last chapters examine some aspects of myocardial noradrenaline metabolism in the ischemic heart and the activity of alpha-adrenoceptor without employing beta blocking agents.