Electricity against high pressure
A new method of combating hypertension is proposed
Italian scientists have proposed to treat hypertension with the help of electrical impulses applied to certain parts of the vagus nerve. The results of the study are published in the journal Cell Reports (Carnevale et al., Celiac Vagus Nerve Stimulation Recapitulates Angiotensin II-Induced Splenic Noradrenergic Activation, Driving Egress of CD8 Effector Cells).
Arterial hypertension, or hypertension – high blood pressure syndrome – is a problem that affects a huge number of people. Despite the presence of many anti-hypertension drugs, it is not often possible to maintain an optimal pressure level with their help. In this regard, scientists are constantly looking for new non-drug methods of treating this disease.
Researchers from the Research Institute of Hospitalization and Treatment of IRCCS Neuromed in Italy conducted an animal experiment in which they showed that bioelectronic stimulation of the vagus nerve can be used to reduce complications caused by hypertension.
Scientists proceeded from the role played by the immune system and its central organ, the spleen, in the occurrence and development of high blood pressure. Specific immune cells, T-lymphocytes, are activated in the spleen, which then enter the bloodstream, migrating to organs affected by hypertension. The researchers called them "target organs."
As the observations previously carried out by the authors have shown, the process of activation of T-lymphocytes is the result of interaction between the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems at the level of the ventral vagus nerve and the splenic nerve.
Bioelectronic stimulation of the vagus nerve can affect through the spleen the activity of specific immune cells involved in hypertensive damage to the target organ. In other words, bioelectronic intervention is able to modulate the activation of lymphocytes in the spleen.
"This is the first step showing us the possibility to intervene electronically, without drugs, in some fundamental mechanisms of hypertension," the words of the first author of the article Lorenzo Carnevale are quoted in the IRCCS Neuromed press release. "In the near future, we will try to identify specific methods of bioelectronic stimulation that can therapeutically influence the activity of the immune system in the spleen."
Earlier, the authors found that angiotensin II (AngII), a hormone involved in blood pressure control, is able to amplify nerve impulses that stimulate the activation of T-lymphocytes in the spleen through the ventral branches of the vagus nerve.
In this study, they get the same effect by feeding electrical impulses of a certain frequency and amplitude to this branch of the vagus nerve.
"Arterial hypertension is a huge public health problem that affects about a billion people in the world," notes another author of the study, Professor of the Faculty of Medicine Giuseppe Lembo, Head of the Department of Angiocardioneurology and Translational Medicine at Sapienza University of Rome. "The results show us the possibility of developing completely new, non–drug treatments for hypertension that will help a large number of people."
The authors acknowledge that further research will be required to find ways to apply the new method clinically.
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