title: Motor and cognitive deficits in mice bred to have low or high blood pressure.
abstract: Deviations from normal blood pressure can lead to a number of physiological and behavioral complications. We tested the hypothesis that hyper- or hypotension is associated with significant differences in motor activity and coordination, anxiety levels, and spatial learning and memory in male and female mice. Compared to normotensive control mice, hypertensive mice were hyperactive and their performance was significantly worse on the rotarod (males only), cued learning (males only), spatial learning/re-learning, and spatial memory. Hypotensive mice of both genders swam more slowly and performed even worse than hypertensive mice on the rotarod, cued learning, spatial learning/re-learning, and spatial memory tasks. Across all phenotypes, females were generally more active than males in the open field and exhibited more anxiety-like behaviors in the elevated zero maze. Alterations in hemodynamics and/or neurovascular unit function may account for the observed behavioral changes in the hypo- and hypertensive mice.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, School of Science and Technology, Loma Linda University, United States. behavioralneuroscience@gmail.com
authors.forename: Richard E
authors.initials: RE
authors.lastname: Hartman
authors.forename: Joel E
authors.initials: JE
authors.lastname: Kamper
authors.forename: Ravi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Goyal
authors.forename: John M
authors.initials: JM
authors.lastname: Stewart
authors.forename: Lawrence D
authors.initials: LD
authors.lastname: Longo
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006973:Hypertension / Q000503:physiopathology*; D007022:Hypotension / Q000503:physiopathology*; D008297:Male; D018782:Maze Learning / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains / Q000502:physiology*; D009043:Motor Activity / Q000502:physiology*; D045442:Rotarod Performance Test / Q000379:methods / Q000706:statistics & numerical data