Fig. 2. Effects of cocaine administration in rat isolated hearts. Rate-pressure product shows monotonic decline with increasing cocaine exposure. However, pioglitazone pretreatment reduced sensitivity to cocaine cardiac depression across all exposure levels (A ). Line pressure, a measure of coronary vascular resistance, is increased by cocaine infusion, but the effect is substantially less in the pioglitazone-fed group (B ). SEM is shown; n = 6 for both groups. *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001. RPP = rate-pressure product.