A rush of blood to the head — anger increases blood flow

Tasneem Naqvi and Hahn Hyuhn from the University of Southern California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center evaluated carotid artery reactivity and brain blood flow in response to mental stress in 10 healthy young volunteers (aged between 19 and 27 years), 20 older healthy volunteers (aged 38 to 60 years) and in 28 patients with essential hypertension (aged 38 to 64 years).

They found that in healthy subjects, mental stress caused vasodilation. This was accompanied by a net increase in brain blood flow. In hypertensive subjects, mental stress produced no vasodilation and no significant change in brain blood flow.

During the experiments, the volunteers were set a series of tasks designed to provoke mental stress, including reading, arithmetic and anger recall tests. The researchers used ultrasound imaging to measure the effects of this activity on the carotid artery and an artery within the brain, while also measuring blood pressure and heart rate.

According to Naqvi, “Inappropriate vasoconstriction, or lack of dilation in response to mental stress in stable coronary heart disease, contributes to the genesis of myocardial ischemia and confers an increased risk in patients with coronary artery disease. It will be interesting to see whether the lack of mental stress induced dilation we found defines subjects at increased risk of future cerebral events”. Lack of required blood flow increase to the brain during mental activities may potentially affect cognition and cerebral performance during complex cerebral tasks.

1. Cerebrovascular mental stress reactivity is impaired in hypertension
Tasneem Z Naqvi and Hahn K Hyuhn
Cardiovascular Ultrasound (in press)
2. Cardiovascular Ultrasound is an Open Access, peer-reviewed, online journal covering clinical, technological, experimental, biological, and molecular aspects of ultrasound applications in cardiovascular physiology and disease. Cardiovascular Ultrasound aims to provide a suitable platform for the most current, clinically and biologically relevant, and high quality research in the field of ultrasound of the heart and vessels. The journal publishes peer-reviewed original research, authoritative reviews, case reports on challenging and/or unusual diagnostic aspects, and expert opinions on new techniques and technologies.

3. BioMed Central (http://www.biomedcentral.com/) is an STM (Science, Technology and Medicine) publisher which has pioneered the open access publishing model. All peer-reviewed research articles published by BioMed Central are made immediately and freely accessible online, and are licensed to allow redistribution and reuse. BioMed Central is part of Springer Science+Business Media, a leading global publisher in the STM sector.

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