Effect of Chronic Hypothalamic Stimulation upon Cholesterol-induced Atherosclerosis in the Rabbit.

The possible role of the central nervous system (CNS) in the pathogenesis of experimental atherosclerosis has received scant investigative scrutiny. Indeed, it can even be stated that the majority of investigators in the field of experimental atherosclerosis are frankly skeptical of any possible etiological relationship between dysfunction of any central neural mechanisms and peripheral atherosclerosis. Certainly in most of the recent American reviews concerned with atherosclerosis the subject of nervous factors in the etiology of atherosclerosis has either been minimized or totally neglected. Despite this seeming exclusion of the CNS from laboratory studies of atherosclerosis by many investigators, certain experimental and clinical data make this neglect appear rather unfortunate. Myasnikov (1, 2) has demonstrated that when drugs that depress certain CNS mechanisms (e.g., barbiturates) were chronically given to cholesterolfed rabbits, these rabbits exhibited a significant decrease in hypercholesterolemia and aortic atherosclerosis. On the other hand, phenamine, a drug which excites the CNS, produced the opposite effects, increasing the hypercholesterolemia and atherosclerosis (3). Finally, it has been reported that rats fed an atherogenic diet and exposed to a particular form of stress exhibited greater degrees of hypercholesterolemia and coronary atherosclerosis than their controls fed the same diet (4). Several clinical studies also strongly suggest that changes in psychological behavior influence not only the level of blood cholesterol (5-8) but also the incidence of clinically manifested coronary artery disease (9).