Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the leading cause of death, and people who remain sedentary are more likely to die from CVD than from other preventable risk factors. High blood pressure is also a risk factor for CVD, and sedentary individuals are more likely to have higher blood pressure than individuals who exercise regularly. Recently, we have identified anatomical and biochemical differences in brainstem regions that control blood pressure in sedentary versus physically active animals. Specifically, neurons in the Rostral Ventrolateral Medulla (RVLM) have greater dendritic branching following sedentary conditions, the latter of which are associated with greater levels of the mature form of Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor (mBDNF). However, the link between increased expression of BDNF in the RVLM, increased neuroplasticity, and elevated blood pressure is unknown. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of BDNF overexpression in the RVLM on resting blood pressure. We hypothesized that overexpressing BDNF in the RVLM increases resting blood pressure. We used in vivo gene targeting by viral vector-mediated enhancement of BDNF expression in the RVLM of five-week-old, male Sprague-Dawley rats (n=11). Overexpression of BDNF was accomplished by injections of an AAV vector expressing either AAV/rg-CamKII-rBDNF(iso3).MYC-WPRE or AAV/rg-CamKII-EGFP-WPRE (control vector). Under isoflurane anesthesia and aseptic conditions, three 60nL microinjections of the retrograde AAV were injected bilaterally into the intermediolateral cell column of the spinal cord. Following five weeks of recovery, rats injected with the AAV vector to overexpress BDNF had significantly higher systolic blood pressure than those injected with the control viral vector (144±10 n=5 vs 117±3 mmHg n=6, p=0.019). Our results indicate the possibility that BDNF controls blood pressure by expression in the RVLM. Future studies are planned to test if hypertensive rats have overactive BDNF signaling in the RVLM (R01HL161233). This abstract was presented at the American Physiology Summit 2026 and is only available in HTML format. There is no downloadable file or PDF version. The Physiology editorial board was not involved in the peer review process.
Park et al. (Fri,) studied this question.