Renal arterial pressure variability. A role in blood pressure control?

It is becoming generally appreciated that blood pressure (BP) fluctuations can have major pathophysiological importance in hypertensives. Nonetheless, little is known regarding the influence of short-term changes in BP on kidney function, a crucial control element for long-term BP regulation. This overview summarizes first efforts to unravel the importance of BP dynamics on renal function. It seems that the kidney is not only an important control element in the BP regulation network; the renal vascular bed may also be very susceptible to BP oscillations, which can occur, for example, from baroreflex malfunction.