Prevention of high blood pressure by reducing sympathetic innervation in the spontaneously hypertensive rat

Abstract

It has previously been reported that the increase in blood pressure in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) occurs concurrently with a marked increase in thickness of the arterial wall and an increase in vascular innervation, particularly for the small muscular arteries. The purpose of the present study was to determine whether prevention of the increase in vascular innervation could prevent elevation of blood pressure in the SHR. We found that intraperitoneal injection of a single dose of an antiserum to nerve growth factor (anti-NGF) into young SHRs (postnatal day 19-24) caused a marked reduction in mean blood pressure at age 3-4 months from the raised value of 24.2 +/- 0.5 kPa to 18.9..