Miroshnichenko A. The study of the influence of hypercholesterolemia on the calcium contents in the rat brain and liver

The dynamics of the calcium contents in the rat brain and liver has been studied in the control animals and in the animals with the endogenously and exogenously induced hypercholesterolemia. The endogenous hypercholesterolemia evoked by the restrain stress was more pronounced and prolonged as compared to that induced exogenously by keeping the animals on a cholesterol-enriched diet. It has been found that the induction of hypercholesterolemia resulted in a calcium accumulation in the rat brain and liver, which was more pronounced when the hypercholesterolemia was triggered endogenously. The increase of the relative calcium contents in the liver was 2,5 times higher in magnitude than that in the brain and was accompanied by a more prominent cell damage. To clarify some of the pathways, which may underlie the observed rise in calcium contents in the tissue upon endogenous hypercholesterolemia, we employed a voltage-gated calcium channels blocker nifedipine. In the rats treated with the drug during the course of the development of hypercholesterolemia, the levels of both a total cholesterol and a high-density lipoprotein cholesterol in the serum.