Cardiac Actions of Methoxamine

Abstract

The cardiac action of large doses of methoxamine and its antagonistic action to epinephrine were studied, using a dog heart-lung preparation. In doses of 4 mg. and above, methoxamine showed a marked negative inotropic action, while it produced only a slight decrease in the heart rate. Pretreatment of animals with 0.1 mg./Kg. of reserpine did not modify the inotropic action, but the decrease in the heart rate disappeared. Simultaneous with these changes, a decrease in the coronary flow and a rise of the pulmonary arterial pressure were observed. Methoxamine in doses of 1 mg. and more abolished both the positive inotropic and the positive chronotropic actions of epinephrine. The negative inotropic action of methoxamine was ascribed to a nonspecific, as yet undetermined mechanism, and the antagonistic action was ascribed to the competitive antagonism at the receptor site (thus methoxamine may be looked upon as a blocking agent of adrenergic β receptor). The weak negative chronotropic action was taken to be an expression of the blockade of the humoral effects of the intrinsic sympathomimetic amines.