Head of the department - academician of RAMS,
Boris I. Tkachenko

(812) 234-54-12
(812) 234-06-70

The department of the physiology of visceral systems was organized in 1931 by academician K.M.Bykov. In that period investigations of cortico-visceral relationships were already started.

The following outstanding Russian scientists worked at the Department:

• Academician K.M. Bykov (1896-1959), the author of the cortical-visceral interaction theory;

• Academician V.N. Chernigovsky (1907-1981) elaborated the theory of interception;

• Professor A.V. Rikkl (1904-1980), who made a great contribution in investigation of internal and external systemic interrelations.

In 1972 Boris Ivanovich Tkachenko was elected head of the department. New technical approaches were introduced to the investigations of the mechanisms of regulation and integrative interaction of visceral functions. A new scientific school began forming, with a new style of relations between the teacher and the disciples, new approaches to research programs. Free choice of subjects for investigations is not limited in the channel of main study. The school is known for complex investigations on the joint of pharmacology and physiology and maximum introduction of the results into clinic.

The department consists of three laboratories:

• organic circulation and microhemodynamics (head- acad. B.I.Tkachenko)

• systemic hemodynamics and respiration (head- d.m.s.A.V.Samojlenko)

• physiology of digestion (head- prof. V.I.Ovsyannikov)

A result of more than 30 years of research of academician B.I.Tkachenko school was the proof that the veins fulfill specific, characteristic of them only, functions, playing not less important role than the arteries. The role of reactions of the venous vessels in the formation of the volume of blood ejection into the vascular system and in the maintenance of the arterial pressure level was established; specific actions of the central and peripheral neurogenic and humoral stimuli on the systemic venous flow were detected; the assessment was made of the influence of extreme environmental factors (lower temperature, lack of oxygen, gravitation loads) on organism as well as of specific influence of different regimens of respiration on the circulation system.

The main scientific problems of the investigations which are in progress in the department now concern the mechanisms of differently directed shifts in the atrium and their comparison with the dynamics in the lesser circle, and an analysis of the mechanisms of stimulation and inhibition of motor activity of the intestine under immobilizing stress against the background of serotonin.

In the perspective it is supposed to concentrate on the following directions:

• the role of reactions of certain vascular regions in the formation of the volume on inflow of venous blood to the heart

• the role of the heart diastolic functions in regulation of the venous return in health and pathology of the circulation system including the mechanisms of regulation of the dynamic characteristics of heart work (health and pathology)

• neurohumoral regulation of co-adjustment of venous return, hemodynamics in the lungs and greater circulation circle in health and disease including investigation of the mechanisms of maintenance of invariable pressure in the pulmonary artery

• use of computerized methods of analysis and control of the heart work and venous return including development of the methods of stochastic control of the circulation system in clinical practice

• investigation of the involvement of cellular and molecular mechanisms in pathogenesis of the impaired filtration-absorption processes in the microcirculation bed including stem cells for the regulation of the venous vessel tone and cardiohemodynamics