© ktsdesign | ShutterstockThe newly identified brain cells that play a role in blood pressure are located in the hypothalamus of the mouse brain and if confirmed in humans could help doctors tackle hypertension.
High blood pressure has just gotten a new culprit: a newly discovered brain cell.
While the usual suspects of
heart risk - weight problems, stress, smoking, those salty slices of bacon - do contribute to high blood pressure, researchers think they've discovered a new cluster of neurons that also play a role.
Researchers from Sweden spotted the previously unknown cluster of nerve cells in the brains of mice, finding the cells affected the animals' blood pressure and other cardiovascular functions. If these neurons also exist in human brains, scientists and doctors may have a new avenue for tackling
hypertension (chronically high blood pressure) and other heart problems.
These cells, which are part of a family of nerves known as parvalbuminergic neurons, are located in the hypothalamus of
the mouse brain, a region that helps control involuntary functions such as thirst, body temperature and blood pressure.
Jens Mittag, a molecular biologist at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, and his team focused on mice that had mutations in a cell receptor for thyroid hormone. This defect prevented their hearts from responding normally to stressful stimuli, such as environmental temperature changes.
Thyroid hormone problems have been known to affect the heart directly in humans. To determine whether the hypothalamus also played a role, Mittag and his team scanned the brains of the mutated mice, finding the hypothalamus was missing a significant number of parvalbuminergic neurons.
