Bruning, R. S., Kenney, W. L., & Alexander, L. M. (2015). Altered skin flowmotion in hypertensive humans. Microvascular Research, 97, 81-87. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mvr.2014.01.001
Essential hypertensive humans exhibit attenuated cutaneous nitric oxide (NO)-dependent vasodilation. Using spectral analysis (fast Fourier transformation) we aimed to characterize the skin flowmotion contained in the laser-Doppler flowmetry recordings during local heating-induced vasodilation before and after concurrent pharmacological inhibition of nitric oxide synthase (NOS) in hypertensive and age-matched normotensive men and women. We hypothesized that hypertensive subjects would have lower total power spectral densities (PSDs), specifically in the frequency intervals associated with intrinsic endothelial and neurogenic control of the microvasculature. Furthermore, we hypothesized that NOS inhibition would attenuate the endothelial frequency interval. Laser-Doppler flowmetry recordings during local heating experiments from 18 hypertensive (MAP: 108 +/- 2 mm Hg) and 18 normotensive (MAP: 88 2 mm Hg) men and women were analyzed. Within site NO-dependent vasodilation was assessed by perfusion of a non-specific NOS inhibitor (N-G-nitro-L-arginine methyl ester; L-NAME) through intradermal microdialysis during the heating-induced plateau in skin blood flow. Local heating-induced vasodilation increased total PSD for all frequency intervals (all p
