Abstract
Mental stress testing is used to study the cardiovascular changes caused by psychologic stress. To examine the effects of cardiac drugs on mental stress-induced changes, it is useful to attain a degree of arousal that can be replicated in serial studies. Skin conductance level, a cholinergically mediated index of arousal, was assessed for its stability in serial studies and under conditions of β-blockade. In normal subjects, skin conductance increased in response to mental stress ( p < 0.001) and was stable across three sessions. In patients with mild hypertension, skin conductance was elevated during mental stress during both placebo and nadolol therapy ( p < 0.001). As expected, nadolol reduced baseline and stress-induced peak arterial pressure and heart rate but had no significant effect on skin conductance. Thus skin conductance level can serve as a stable and useful index of autonomic arousal in clinical trials, even in patients using β-blocking medications.
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