This Article  • Full text  • PDF  • Send to a friend  • Save in My Folder  • Save to citation manager  • Permissions  Citing Articles  • Contact me when this article is cited  Related Content  • Similar articles in JAMA  Topic Collections  • Hypertension  • Neurology  • Alert me on articles by topic

Tracy Hampton, PhD

JAMA. 2007;297:2339.

	Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text and any section headings.

One cause of high blood pressure may lie within the brain rather than the heart or blood vessels, according to recent studies by scientists at the University of Bristol, in England, and the Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, in Japan (Waki H et al. Hypertension. doi:10.1161/HYPTERTENSIONAHA.106 .085589 [published online ahead of print April 9, 2007]).

The investigators previously showed that a protein called junctional adhesion molecule-1 (JAM-1), which forms tight junctions between adjacent endothelial cells and is part of the blood-brain barrier, is differentially expressed in the brain stem of spontaneously hypertensive rats compared with normotensive animals. JAM-1 also plays a role in trapping leukocytes and causing inflammation, which may obstruct blood flow.

The researchers quantified the expression of JAM-1, finding that JAM-1 in the spontaneously hypertensive rat is overexpressed throughout the body and is not secondary to hypertension. When JAM-1 was expressed in the . . . [Full Text of this Article]