[Development of the theory of cardiac innervation during ontogenesis in health and disease].

The paper describes the mediatory stage of prenatal development of cardiac innervation and the phenomenon of early involution of sympathetic nerve plexuses in postnatality, which has been established while analyzing early autopsies by neurohistochemical studies. lmmunocytochemical, luminescence, and ultrastructural techniques have defined changes in the stages of their formation and development of the above early involution. Complex (neurohistochemical and electrophysiological) studies quantified groups of age-related cardiac innervation changes in health. Cardiac rhythm variability was electrophysiologically studied in 43 subjects aged 18-71 years. Cardiac desympathization is shown to develop after 40 years of age. Age-related changes in cardiac regulatory mechanisms should be taken into account on studying visceral systems in coronary heart disease, atherosclerosis, and sudden cardiac death, and during cardiac transplantation. Immunohistochemical study has revealed an increase in nitric oxide expression in the human cardiac nervous apparatus.