New Pathway Linking the Brain to High Blood Pressure Identified

In a recent study published in the journal PLOS One, scientists at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UM SOM), and the Ottawa Heart Institute uncovered a new pathway by which the brain uses an unusual steroid to control blood pressure. The study also suggests new approaches for treating high blood pressure and heart failure. “This research gives us an entirely new way of understanding how the brain and the cardiovascular system work together,” said one of the study’s lead authors. “It opens a new and exciting way for us to work on innovative treatment approaches that could one day help patients. Working with an animal model of hypertension, the researchers found a new link between the brain and increased blood pressure, a little-known steroid called ouabain. Ouabain was discovered in human blood more than 20 years ago, and the study is the first to identify the particular pathway that connected the brain to ouabain’s effects on proteins that regulate arterial calcium and contraction. Through this mechanism, ouabain makes arteries more sensitive to sympathetic stimulation, and as a result the enhanced artery constriction promotes chronic hypertension. To read more about this study, click here.