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Updated: Feb 17, 2026

Evaluation of the Cognitive Performance of Hypertensive Patients with Silent Cerebrovascular Lesions
Published on: April 23, 2021
High salt induced hypertension leads to cognitive defect
Cui-Ping Guo1, Zhen Wei1, Fang Huang1
1Department of Pathophysiology, School of Basic Medicine, Key Laboratory of Ministry of Education of China for Neurological Disorders, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430030, China.
Abstract:
Although increasing evidences suggest a relationship between hypertension and brain function for years, it is still unclear whether hypertension constitutes a risk factor for cognitive decline and its underlying mechanism. In the present study, an experimental animal model of hypertension simply by feeding rats with high salt diet was employed. We found that long-term high salt intake caused a marked increase of systolic blood pressure linked to a declined regional cerebral blood flow. Fear conditioning and morris water maze behavioral test revealed that high salt diet induced hippocampal dependent spatial reference memory deficits, while a decreased synaptogenesis without neuronal loss in hippocampus was observed in high salt treated rats. Furthermore, we found that high salt induced a decrease of intracellular calcium, which inactivated CaMK II and resulted in dephosphorylation of CREB at Ser133. These findings suggest a novel etiopathogenic mechanism of cognitive deficit induced by hypertension, which is initiated by high salt diet.
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