A Mathematical model of the short-term arterial pressure control in humans is presented. It includes a six-compartment description of the vascular system, an elastance variable model of the pulsating heart, two groups of baroreceptors (high-pressure or sinoaortic baroreceptors and low-pressure or cardiopulmonary baroreceptors), the efferent activity in the sympathetic nerves and in the vagus, and the response of four distinct effectors (heart period, systemic peripheral resistance, systemic venous unstressed volume and heart contractility).

Several experimental results reported in the physiological literature can be reproduced with the model quite well. The examples presented in this work include the effect of combined sympathetic and vagal stimulation on heart rate, the baroreflex response to mild and severe acute haemorrhages, and the baroreflex response to ventricular pacing at different rates performed during atrio-ventricular block.

The results suggest that:

i) The sympathetic nerves and the vagus interact linearly in regulating heart period. The apparent negative interaction observed experimentally can be ascribed merely to the hyperbolic relationship which links heart rate to heart period.

ii) The cardiopulmonary baroafferents play a significant role in the control of systemic arterial pressure during mild haemorrhages (lower than 3 – 4% of the overall blood volume). In this range, they may allow arterial pressure to be maintained at its normal level without the intervention of the sinoaortic baroreceptors. In contrast, the sinoartic baroreceptors become the major responsible of the observed cardiovascular adjustments during more severe haemorrhages, when the role of cardiopulmonary baroreceptors becomes progressively exhausted.

iii) The stability margin of the closed-loop system is quite low. Increasing the static gain of the baroreceptors or reducing the rate-dependent component may result in self-sustained oscillations similar to Mayer waves.