SUMMARY

As rainbow trout approach exhaustion during prolonged exercise, they maintain maximum cardiac output despite the fact their venous blood, which bathes the heart, becomes hypoxic, acidotic and hyperkalemic. Because these factors are individually recognized to have detrimental inotropic and chronotropic effects on cardiac performance, we hypothesized that adrenergic stimulation is critical in maintaining maximum cardiac performance under these collectively adverse conditions in vivo. To test this hypothesis, maximum cardiac performance in the presence and absence of maximal adrenergic stimulation was assessed with in situ rainbow trout hearts using relevant hyperkalemic (5.0 mmol l^–1 K⁺), acidotic (pH 7.5) and hypoxic challenges. With tonic adrenergic stimulation (5.0 nmol l^–1 adrenaline), hearts produced only 44.8±14.6% of their normal maximum cardiac output when exposed under normoxic conditions (20 kPa) to the hyperkalemic, acidotic perfusate, indicating that in vivo there was no refuge from cardiac impairment even if venous blood was fully oxygenated. By contrast, maximum adrenergic stimulation (500 nmol l^–1 adrenaline), fully protected maximum cardiac performance under hyperkalemic and acidotic conditions over a wide range of oxygen availability, from normoxia to 2.0 kPa, a venous oxygen tension close to routine values in vivo. Extending the level of hypoxia to 1.3 kPa resulted in a 43.6±2.8% decrease in maximum cardiac output, with hearts failing when tested at 1.0 kPa. Our results suggest that adrenergic stimulation of the trout heart is critical in maintaining maximum performance during prolonged swimming tests, and probably during all forms of exhaustive activity and recovery, when venous blood is hyperkalemic, acidotic and hypoxic.