Some triggering mechanism, in addition to perfusion-contraction matching, may be essential to initiate hibernation

Myocardial hibernation refers to a clinical state of persistently impaired myocardial function at rest due to reduced coronary blood flow (5, 6). The question whether hibernation is simply the result of down-regulation of myocardial function to such an extent that blood flow and function reach a new equilibrium (perfusion-contraction matching) has received a great deal of attention in the past few years (for review see ref. 8).