Experimental Variation in Vascular Response Studies 1

Abstract

Summary

To investigate sources of variation in vascular response studies in dogs, forelimb vascular responses to a variety of vasoactive agents were measured in 17 line-bred Labrador dogs of the same age, and in 64 mongrel dogs of varying age. Results indicated that the level of forelimb initial resistance contributed importantly to variance in vascular responses. In contrast there was little evidence that genetic makeup or age influenced experimental error. Thus, variation in the level of initial resistance of a vascular bed must be considered in interpretation of data from vascular response studies. There is little advantage, however, to be gained from use of expensive highly inbred dogs in such studies.