[The significance of stress intensity for the emotional and visceral reactivity, especially for blood pressure regulation].

The influence of light, medium, and heavy chronic stress upon cerebro-visceral functions following 3 and 5 weeks of daily stress exposure was examined. The following results were obtained: Light stress produced no changes of cerebro-visceral functions. Medium stress restricted the learning and memory capacity, increased systolic blood pressure, fasting blood sugar and adrenal weights. The B-cells of the pancreatic islets showed degranulations of varying intensity. Heavy stress diminished the learning and memory capacity, increased adrenal weights and led to hypergranulation of the pancreatic B-cells. Blood sugar and blood pressure values fall within physiological limits. Load tests, however, revealed in these animals symptoms of premorbid states. Since throughout the period of observation, light stress stablized the regulation processes, medium stress induced early stages of pathological processes, and heavy stress caused premorbid states, no linearity could be established between the load intensity and the changes of cerebro-visceral functions.