Current Research: 

The major project in our laboratory has, as its goal, an understanding of the mechanisms responsible for experimental hypertension. We are studying the sequence of changes that leads from the experimental intervention used to initiate hypertension to the increase in total peripheral resistance responsible for the chronic elevation in arterial pressure. Students will have experience in monitoring the following parameters related to the evolution of hypertension.

• Vascular reactivity (vascular smooth muscle sensitivity and contractility are studied in the whole animal, perfused organs, isolate muscle strips, and in isolated subcellular components of the muscle)

• The role of nitric oxide in the regulation of blood pressure

• Involvement of the cardio-vascular regulatory center in the brain in "salt-sensitive" hypertension
  

Representative Publications:

Cabrera, CL, Bealer, SL, and Bohr, DF. Contral depressor action of nitric oxide is deficient in genetic hypertension. Amer Jour Hypertension, 9: 237-241, 1996

McIntyre, M, Bohr, DF, and Dominiczak, A.F. Endothelial function in hypertension: The role of superoxide anion. Hypertension, 34:539-545, 1999 

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