Sympathetic Vascular Tone in Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats

Increased activity of the sympathetic nervous system may be involved in the pathogenesis of genetic hypertension of rats. In order to assess the significance of the peripheral sympathetic activity sympathetic vascular tone was studied in stroke prone spontaneously hypertensive rats (spSHR) and Wistar-Kyoto control rats (WKR) by measuring: 1) Plasma concentrations of catecholamines (CA) 2) Reactivity of the isolated perfused hindlimb vasculature to noradrenaline (NA).