Effects of acute hypertension on brain metabolism in normotensive, renovascular hypertensive and spontaneously hypertensive rats.

Effects of angiotensin-induced acute hypertension on cerebral metabolism were studied in normotensive (NTR), spontaneously hypertensive (SHR) and experimental renovascular hypertensive rats (RHR). Lactate, pyruvate and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) concentrations in the brain frozen in situ at 18--20 min after angiotensin infusion, which raised mean arterial pressure (MAP) by 28--62% of control, were determined by enzymatic methods. Supratentorial lactate was significantly increased to 135% of control in RHR, its increase being correlated with the degree of hypertension, wherease it remained unchanged in NTR or SHR. Furthermore, RHR showed a tendency toward increase in lactate/pyruvate ratio with a decrease in ATP despite no change of arterial acid-base balance measured simultaneously before and after acute induced hypertension. From the present study, it is postulated that some renal factor seems to contribute ischemic metabolic changes in RHR following acute hypertension. The possible effect of renin on the vascular permeability is discussed as the pathogenesis of hypertensive encephalopathy.