Autonomic Nervous System Responses during Sedative Infusions of Dexmedetomidine

Abstract

Infusion of dexmedetomidine results in compensated reductions in systemic sympathetic tone without changes in baroreflex sensitivity. Dexmedetomidine blunts heart rate and the systemic sympathetic activation due to sweating, but it is less effective in blunting cardiac sympathetic responses to shivering. During dexmedetomidine infusion, cardiac sympathetic and parasympathetic tone may have nonreciprocal changes during shivering.