Hypertension has been associated with causing deleterious effects to the cerebrovasculature, which are thought to underlie the formation of white matter lesions (WML) and predispose individuals to age related cognitive decline. In humans hypertension frequently occurs concomitantly with other vascular risk factors making it difficult to ascertain the primary mechanisms of hypertension in isolation. Animal models of hypertension have been used in an aid to establish the mechanisms of hypertension in isolation. To date the knowledge gleaned from animal models has undoubtedly provided an insight as to the role of hypertension and cerebrovasculature remodelling but, these models have limitations such as lack of genetically matched controls and the inability to control the severity of hypertension, restricting the understanding of the underlying mechanisms. All studies within this thesis used the Cyp1a1 Ren2 inducible hypertensive rat model, induced by dietary addition of Indole-3-carbinol (I3C), allowing the severity and duration of hypertension to be tightly controlled and compared to genetically matched controls. This thesis set out to address the hypothesis that sustained hypertension will lead to alterations to the structural integrity of the cerebrovasculature and white matter, which will be exacerbated with age and that hypertension will be associated with alterations to gene expression and cognitive function. Initially this thesis sought to investigate the effect of hypertension on the structural integrity of the vasculature in the Cyp1a1 Ren2 rat model. Firstly, blood pressure in the Cyp1a1 Ren2 rat model was characterised and it was found that the dietary addition of I3C, caused a sustained level of increased blood pressure in all three cohorts. Cerebrovascular alterations were found to consist of increased eNOS expression in the young brain, which progressed with increased duration of hypertension to vascular morphological alterations of decreased vessel width and a redistribution of tight junction protein claudin-5. With age, hypertensive vascular alterations consisted of increased eNOS expression and vascular density. Additionally, there was evidence that hypertension caused a vascular inflammatory response in the young and aged brain. Secondly, this thesis investigated the effect of hypertension on gene expression. Overall it was found that hypertension altered genes related to collagen growth factors, ion channels, eNOS related Map-Kinase pathway and inflammatory genes. Thirdly, this thesis sought to investigate the impact of hypertension on the overall structural integrity of the brain and white matter examining neurons, myelin, oligodendrocytes, axons and microglia, in several regions of the young and aged brain. In general, this study found that hypertension did not cause overt structural or myelin alterations in the majority of regions analysed, with only evidence of myelin alterations occurring within the subcortex of hypertensive animals from each of the young cohorts analysed. However, an adverse subcortical inflammatory response was found in hypertensive animals of the young 6-month cohort and also in hypertensive animals from the aged 4-month cohort, where the inflammatory response was not exclusive to the subcortex of hypertensive animals but also occurred in multiple white matter tracts. Lastly this thesis chose to examine the effect of hypertension on cognitive function, specifically spatial reference and working memory using the Morris water maze and found no evidence of alterations in the cognitive functions examined. Conclusions The results presented within this thesis demonstrated that hypertension in isolation leads to modest alterations to the integrity of the cerebrovasculature and white matter, with no evidence of alterations to specific cognitive functions examined, demonstrating the importance of studying hypertension in isolation. Additionally, this study highlights the initial hypertensive induced alterations to the cerebrovasculature, such as endothelial signalling, vascular structure and inflammation, providing a window for therapeutic intervention at a time point when there are minimal alterations to the overall structural integrity of the brain. Future studies in this model should concentrate on examining different severities of hypertension and also hypertension concomitantly with other vascular risk factors to try and recapitulate pathological alterations found in humans.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:630353 |
| Date | January 2014 |
| Creators | Pannozzo, Mercede Alcina |
| Contributors | Horsburgh, Karen; Holland, Philip |
| Publisher | University of Edinburgh |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://hdl.handle.net/1842/9776 |
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