Antihypertensive Treatment and the Responsiveness to Glutamate in Ventrolateral Medulla

Abstract

We have recently reported that the cardiovascular responses to excitatory amino acids are augmented in the rostral ventrolateral medulla of spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). In the present study, we investigated whether the responsiveness to excitatory amino acids would be normalized by antihypertensive treatment. Thus we treated 4-week-old SHR and age-matched Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats with either enalapril (25 mg/kg per day in drinking water) or vehicle for 8 weeks. At 12 weeks of age, systolic blood pressure in the untreated SHR (248 +/- 9 mm Hg) was significantly (P