Abstract
The negative chronotropic properties of adenosine were initially described in the seminal investigations of Drury and Szent-Gyorgyi (1929). Adenosine and adenine nucleotides are now generally recognized to have physiologically significant and potent cardiovascular actions. In the heart, adenosine exerts a multiplicity of actions including vasodilation of coronary vasculature, depression of sinoatrial and atrioventricular nodal activity, inhibition of atrial contractility, attenuation of the stimulatory effects of catecholamines in the ventricular myocardium, and a depression of ventricular automaticity (Belardinelli et al., 1989).