National Institutes of Health grant to help AU study on how blood pressure impacts cognition – News – The Augusta Chronicle – Augusta, GA Filosa, a neurovascular physiologist in the Department of Physiology at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, recently received a $1.7 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to study how blood pressure can impact cognition, according to a news release from AU.
High blood pressure puts a squeeze on blood vessels in the brain that can disrupt a protective process that works to balance blood flow to the brain with the activity of resting neurons. When blood flow decreases due to hypertension, astrocytes – neuron-nurturing brain cells – may instead tell neurons to increase their activity, Filosa said.
The miscommunication between the brain blood vessels, astrocytes and neurons could be an early factor in how high blood pressure can impair cognitive function, according to Filosa.
“Untreated hypertension can lead to cognitive impairment but exactly how it happens, we don’t really know,” she said. By the time patients are symptomatic, a lot of the physiology of the vasculature has deteriorated so the question is: How can we diagnose impairments in vascular function way before that, years before cognitive impairments are established and become symptomatic.”
Filosa is hoping the grant will help her to find answers.
Regulation of blood flow is a normal body function, especially in the brain which doesn’t like extreme changes in blood flow. For example, large increases in flow can result in swelling, especially if blood pressure also rises. Lower pressure and decreased blood flow mean less energy for neurons which require a continuous stream of oxygen and nutrients found in blood to function.
“Neurons don’t have energy reserves so their activity is dependent on continuous blood flow,” said Filosa.
This is why brain cells can die quickly in the event of a stroke or head trauma, and why they likely do not function well with chronic hypertension.
High blood pressure also causes the parenchymal arterioles that carry blood for neurons constrict, so less blood is carried. They will look at what happens to calcium levels in astrocytes in response to various blood pressure levels in the brains of booth normal mice and those that have impaired blood flow, and what mediates any change.
