The research projects of the High Blood Pressure Research Unit have the common aim of understanding the pathophysiology of high blood pressure, and in particular that due to steroid hormones.
The Unit studies the mechanisms by which steroid hormones from the adrenal gland, in particular the major glucocorticoid in rodents, corticosterone, contribute to blood pressure regulation and cause high blood pressure (hypertension).
The Unit studies conscious animals using a range of techniques of integrative physiology in rats and functional genomics in mice. At present we are using a new technology that allows the recording of blood pressure in rats and mice by an implantable telemetric probe. This is an automated system that allows values of blood pressure to be recorded 24 hours a day - which permits better measures of blood pressure and improved study design.
Currently our animal studies are directed at exploring the role which nitric oxide cofactors play in ameliorating elevated blood pressure and what insights into the development of high blood pressure might be revealed by the use of selective gene-knock out mice.
Hypertension or high blood pressure affects some 15% of Australians and is a leading cause of heart attack, stroke, kidney failure, blindness and prematurity. This program has close links to an analogous program in human subjects based in Sydney.