Cardiac function of the leopard shark,Triakis semifasciata

Summary The pressure difference between the cardinal sinus and the pericardium, and the transmural ventricular diastolic pressure at rest and during swimming in the leopard shark, Triakis semifasciata, was measured to characterize the mechanism of cardiac filling in chronically-instrumented fish and to evaluate cardiac responses to swimming. Echo-Doppler and radiographic imaging were also used to fully describe the cardiac cycle. Swimming induces an increase in preload as manifested by a large increment of cardinal sinus pressure (0.26/0.20 [systolic/diastolic] to 0.49/0.32 kPa) which always exceeds pericardial pressure. Increases in both mean ventricular diastolic transmural pressure (0.30–0.77 kPa) and cardinal sinus pressure during swimming suggest increased cardiac filling by vis a tergo as the mechanism for augmenting cardiac output. In contrast to mammals, the fluid-filled pericardial space of elasmobranchs is considerably larger and the pericardium itself does not move in concert with the heart throughout the cardiac cycle. Also, modest increases in heart rate drastically curtail the duration of diastole, which becomes much less than that of systole, a phenomenon not found in mammals. In the absence of tachycardia (<40 bpm), ventricular filling is characterized by a period of early rapid filling, and a late period of filling owing to atrial systole, separated by a period of diastasis. Ventricular filling in elasmobranchs is thus biphasic and is not solely dependent on atrial systole. Atrial diastole is characterized by three filling periods associated with atrial relaxation, ventricular ejection, and sinus venosus contraction. The estimated ventricular ejection fraction of Triakis (80%) exceeds that of the mammalian left ventricle.