[Neonatal intermittent hypoxia and hypertension].

Obstructive apnea during sleep is accompanied by intermittent hypoxia (IH) leading to hypertension and other cardiovascular disturbances. A comparative evaluation of long-term effects of the neonatal IH on the cardiovascular function was performed in normotensive Sprague-Dawley and spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHR). The newborn rats were placed for 30 days to conditions of IH (8 and 21% O2, alternating every 90 s for 12 h/day). Control groups of rats were constantly kept in normoxia. By 6 months, in the spontaneously hypertensive rats submitted to IH at the period of wakefulness there was a statistically significant increase (as compared with control) of the systolic (correspondingly 185.8 +/- 1.7 and 169.9 +/- 1.4 mm Hg, p < 0.01) and diastolic pressure (correspondingly 96.2 +/- 4.9 and 86.0 +/- 2.6 mm Hg, p < 0.01). During sleep, the systolic and diastolic pressure in these rats was higher than in control animals by 10 mm Hg (p < 0.01) and 12 mm Hg (p < 0.01), its decrease during sleep being absent. SHR submitted to IH had an increase in low- to the high-frequency power ratio of the heart rate variability from 0.9 +/- 0.15 to 1.5 +/- 0.17, which indicates a shift of the sympatho-parasympathetic balance in this group towards predominance of the sympathetic component. In the Sprague-Dawley rats submitted to neonatal hypoxia, the above changes were not pronounced. These peculiarities of the hypertensive rats allow establishing connection of the genetic factor with the sympathetic mechanism providing long-term consequences of the neonatal IH for the cardiovascular control in these rats.