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Session: Poster session I
Session starts: Thursday 24 January, 15:00

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Ed van Bavel (Academic Medical Center)
Bilge Guvenc Tuna (Academic Medical Center)

Abstract:
Organ perfusion is regulated by diameter control of small arteries and arterioles. These resistance vessels are sensitive to their mechanical and chemical environment, resulting in a range of cellular processes that ultimately affect vascular structure, mechanical properties and vascular tone (the degree of vasoconstriction). The control loops regulating vascular function and structure are strongly interacting. As an example, an increase in pressure causes wall-stress driven distension followed by a myogenic constriction that again normalizes the stress. This action, at constant flow, increases endothelial shear stress, driving vasodilation. Such acute regulation interacts with structural responses (remodelling and hypertrophy) due to shared biomechanical stimuli and signalling pathways. The net effect of all such regulation is that resistance vessels are maintained in a functional and stable state, characterized by amongst others regulated wall stress, shear stress, matched active and passive biomechanics and sufficient vascular reserve. This modelling study identifies four critical adaptation processes that act on the vascular biomechanics, effectuating integrated regulation of diameter: control of tone, smooth muscle cell length adaptation, eutrophic matrix rearrangement and trophic responses. Their combined action maintains arteries in their optimal state, ready to cope with new challenges, allowing continuous long-term vasoregulation. Excluding any of these processes results in a poorly regulated state and in some cases instability of vascular structure, and would eventually lead to failure of the vessel to play its role in cardiovascular homeostasis. The current analysis adds to the comprehensive understanding of the pathogenesis of hypertension and other cardiovascular disorders, and generates testable hypotheses that could lead to new therapeutic approaches. Supported by the FP7 Marie Curie Initial Training Network ‘SMART’