Lyashenko V. Role of calcium in structural and functional changes in tissues at hypercholesterinemia

The dissertation is devoted to investigation of the role of calcium in structural and functional changes in aorta, heart, skeletal muscle, liver and brain under stress- induced hy-percholesterinemia in rats. A model of experimental stress-induced hypercholesterinemia has been made on rats which are thought to be resistant to alimentary hypercholesterinemia. It has been shown that prolonged (21 weeks) hypercholesterinemia resulted in injuring the morphological structure of all the organs observed, but the most pronounced damage proved to be in aorta. In all the organs under exploration we have determined a marked increase in the calcium content which correlated with an increase in cholesterol content in the blood. To study the contribution of different calcium antagonists. Inhibiting of L-type calcium chan-nels and a1-adrenoreceptors have been shown to be the most important ways to protect structure and function of all the organs under exploration under endogenic hypercholes-terinemia. Inhibiting of L-type calcium channels, a1-adrenoreceptors, and angiotensin-converting enzyme parallel to hypercholesterinemia development resulted in an improve-ment of the electric and contractile responses of the aorta, behavioral responses and explora-tory activity.