Blood pressure in conscious and anesthetized adrenal-enucleated Sprague–Dawley and Wistar–Furth rats

Abstract

Systolic blood pressure was measured weekly in conscious and in anesthetized female Sprague–Dawley (SD) and Wistar–Furth (W/Fu) rats following adrenal enucleation, unilateral nephrectomy, and the imposition of a high salt intake. SD rats quickly developed adrenal-regeneration hypertension (ARH) which progressed rapidly, and was identifiable in both the conscious and the anesthetized state. W/Fu rats slowly developed mild ARH, which, with a single exception, was identifiable only in conscious animals; the arterial pressures were within the normotensive range under anesthesia. The depressor effect of ether was also greater in adrenal-enucleated W/Fu than in similarly prepared SD rats, and in hypertensives than in normotensives. It is concluded that blood pressure measurements taken under anesthesia may not be representative of the true resting blood pressures: this is likely to be a particularly crucial problem in identifying early hypertension under circumstances and in rat strains highly susceptible to the depressor effects of ether.