Electric potentials across the aorta of dogs.

Abstract

Using a high impedance voltmeter in series with a pair of measuring electrodes, attempts were made to measure potential differences along and across the wall of the abdominal aorta of 28 dogs. Aortic grafts in the nature of either plastic or freeze-dried homografts had been inserted in some of these animals from 3 days to 6 months previously. In two animals with homografts a small potential gradient was demonstrable along the adventitial surface of the vessel, but in none of the animals was a potential difference detectable across the vessel when the electrodes were directly opposed. Crushing injuries to host aorta and grafts failed to produce a measurable potential difference. If potentials across blood vessel walls normally exist, these are less than 1 mv, the limit of sensitivity in the techniques and apparatus employed.