[Anomalies in smooth muscle fibers and arterial hypertension]

This paper reviews previous work from our laboratory concerning the role of resistance vessel abnormalities in the pathogenesis of high blood pressure both in man and in the spontaneously hypertensive rat. In both man and rat, a number of resistance vessel characteristics differ between those from hypertensive individuals and those from normotensive controls, including vascular structure and the sensitivity of the noradrenaline concentration-response curve to cocaine (expressed as a "cocaine-shift", and possibly being a marker for amount of sympathetic innervation). In essential hypertensive patients who had been treated for about 1 year, or in rats which were treated from age 4 weeks to 24 weeks, neither vascular structure nor "cocaine-shift" were fully normalized. Failure to obtain full regression of vascular structure could have important consequences concerning the hemodynamics of treated hypertensive individuals.