[Quantification of concealed conduction in the atrioventricular node].

Twenty-eight anaesthetized open-chest mongrel dogs were used. Programmed atrial pacing was used and Hisian electrograms recorded through endocavitary electro-catheters to study and quantify the concealed conduction of non-transmitted atrial impulses in the A-V node. An exponential model was used in three situations to quantify the nodal conduction during incremental atrial pacing: a) during 1:1 conduction, b) during 2:1 nodal block, and c) during pacing, coupling an atrial impulse delivered at fixed intervals and blocked in the A-V node to each transmitted impulse. The relation between intranodal conduction times was analyzed both with and without the presence of blocked impulses, and the quotient between the obtained functions in situations b, c and situation a was determined. In a subgroup of 13 dogs the study was repeated following pharmacological block of the autonomic nervous system. In dogs with autonomic block, this relation always tended to decrease when the atrial pacing rate increased. The variations in the group of dogs with intact autonomic nervous systems were not homogeneous. During pacing with coupled block impulses, the progressive removal of conduction curves obtained for each coupling interval with respect to those obtained during 1:1 transmission, expresses the interval with respect ot those obtained during 1:1 transmission, expresses the lesser influence of the blocked impulses on decreasing their coupling interval.