American journal of physiology. Regulatory, integrative and comparative physiology
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Am. J. Physiol. Regul. Integr. Comp. Physiol. · Jun 2010
ReviewThe Walter B. Cannon Memorial Award Lecture, 2009. Physiology in perspective: The wisdom of the body. In search of autonomic balance: the good, the bad, and the ugly.
Walter B. Cannon's research on the sympathetic nervous system and neurochemical transmission was pioneering. Wisdom has endowed our body with a powerful autonomic neural regulation of the circulation that provides optimal perfusion of every organ in accordance to its metabolic needs. ⋯ This short review, presented as The Walter B. Cannon Memorial Award Lecture for 2009, addresses the mechanisms that disrupt sensory signaling and result in a chronic maladjustment of the autonomic neural output that in many cardiovascular diseases results in excessive increases in the risks of dying. The hopes for any reduction of those risks resides in an understanding of the molecular determinants of neuronal signaling.