Patent ID: 8412326

Claim:
A system for pacing a heart, comprising: a monitoring circuit including: a monitoring timer configured to initiate and time a monitoring interval including an anticipated duration of vagal surge resulting from a delivery of a first therapy; a sensing circuit configured to sense one or more physiological signals each indicative of a level of the vagal surge, the one or more physiological signals including at least a cardiac signal; and a detection circuit configured to detect one or more parameters each indicative of the level of the vagal surge using the sensed one or more physiological signals, the one or more parameters including at least an intrinsic heart rate; a pacing output circuit configured to deliver a second therapy including delivering pacing pulses, the second therapy different from the first therapy; and a pacing control circuit coupled to the monitoring circuit and the pacing output circuit, the pacing control circuit configured to control the delivery of the second therapy using pacing parameters and including: a response timer configured to initiate and time a response interval following the delivery of the first therapy, the response interval including the anticipated duration of the vagal surge; and a parameter adjustment module configured to adjust one or more pacing parameters of the pacing parameters to allow the heart to beat at the intrinsic heart rate during the response interval.