Cardiovascular control in the Milan strain of spontaneously hypertensive rat (MHS) at "rest" and during acute mental "stress"

Abstract

The cardiovascular responses to acute mental "stress" were compared in the Milan strain of spontaneously hypertensive rats (MHS) and in normotensive control rats (NR). Blood pressure and heart rate were followed in pairs of awake MHS and NR, while defence reactions were provoked by alerting stimuli (noise, vibration). No differences were noted between the two groups in response to "stress" although resting heart rate in MHS was lower than in NR. Administration of atropine or propranolol to MHS and NR showed the MHS to have a higher resting vagal tone and lower sympathetic tone than the NR. Subsequent (at least two weeks later) hemodynamic investigation, under nembutal anesthesia, showed no difference in cardiac output between MHS and NR but a higher stroke volume, presumably related to the lower heart rate in MHS. Thus, total peripheral resistance was increased in MHS as was the ratio left ventricular weight/body weight, and in good proportion to the blood pressure rise. Thus MHS differ substantially in both their responses to "stress" and also hemodynamically from the Okamoto strain of spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR), being the so far most studied and best known model of essential hypertension in man. In MHS the hypertension is more of a systolic type and is of primarily renal origin. As such, MHS provide another model for investigating the polygenic nature of hypertension in man.