Character of tissue changes as well as their reversibility could vary depending on the duration of myocardial ischemia. Long (over 30 min) ischemia leads to a massive release of myocardial interstitial norepinephrine. We tried to investigate changes in the myocardial sympathetic system produced by a relatively long episode of ischemia-repeperfusion. Myocardial norepinephrine has been collected by means of microdialysis probe during repeated occlusions of the left descending coronary artery. It was shown that long episode of occulusion-reperfusion resulted in suppression of massive norepinephrine release in response to second (test) occlusion. The features of norepinephrine release during successive occlusions make it possible to associate this process with the reversibility of the ischemic tissue damages.