The action of arachidonic acid on experimental hypertension in the rat.

Keeping in mind the vasodilator action of prostaglandins, the control that they exercise over the vascular supply of kidneys and the sympathetic activity, research was conducted in order to establish the effect of arachidonic acid, the precursor of PGE2, on experimental hypertension in the rat. The experimental hypertension was induced by unilateral nephrectomy, followed by the administration of DOCA and the elevated sodium diet. The treatment was short in one group, long in the other, and both groups were compared to a control hypertensive group which received no treatment at all. Arachidonic acid worsened the experimental hypertension by 37% in the long treatment, and by 25% in the short treatment. The administration of lysine-acetylsalicylate diminished this hypertension. A non-saturated acid, oleic acid, which is not involved in prostaglandin synthesis, has no action. The authors would like to emphasize that in one of the previous experiments, L-tyrosine, the precursor of catecholamines, diminished the experimental hypertension in the rat, and also that L-DOPA and IMAO (MAOI) have comparable effects. It seems, therefore, that the depression of the central catecholaminergic activity, which is supposed to be the action of arachidonic acid via an increase in the PGE2 synthesis, appears to increase hypertension. It is noteworthy that the medial forebrain bundle (MFB) is catecholaminergic and that the periventricular system (PVS) is cholinergic. Thus hypertension may represent the peripheral vascular response to anguish which results from the activation of PVS and from the depression of MFB.