Fig. 1.

Schematic representation of the arterial baroreflex (ABR) neural and peripheral arcs. The ABR system is an integrated negative-feedback system that stabilizes systemic arterial blood pressure against pressure perturbations primarily through reflex changes in the sympathetic nervous system. The ABR loop consists of a fast neural arc and a slow mechanical arc (i.e., peripheral arc). The neural arc consists of the sensing of arterial blood pressure by the baroreceptors (input) to an efferent sympathetic nerve response (output), whereas the peripheral arc consists of the transduction of sympathetic efferent nerve activity (input) to a change in vascular smooth muscle tone and, thus, femoral blood velocity (FBV; output).