FIGURE 11.

A computer screen capture from the NeuroScope displaying the following beat‐to‐beat traces of cardiovascular parameters during two episodes of mechanical digital massages of the two carotid sinuses. Heart rate (HR) expressed in beats.min⁻¹; systolic (SBP), diastolic (DBP) and mean (MAP) arterial blood pressures measured in mmHg; cardiac sensitivity to baroreflex (CSB) measured in ms.mmHg⁻¹ and cardiac vagal tone (CVT) measure in units of a linear vagal scale (LVS) (see text for descriptions and methods used to measure these cardiovascular parameters). The right carotid sinus was massaged for 15 s starting from C1 to C2 at R. Note the sharp increases in both CVT and CSB from baseline levels accompanied by sharp drops in both HR and arterial blood pressures. The procedure is repeated on the left carotid sinus at L with similar increases in CVT and CSB accompanied by sharp drops in HR and arterial blood pressures.