Anger does increase brain blood flow

A piece of research has shown that anger or mental stress can increase the flow of blood in the brain. Led by Tasneem Naqvi and Hahn Hyuhn from the University of Southern California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, the study involved a series of ultrasound experiments. It showed that mental stress causes carotid artery dilation, and increases brain blood flow. The researchers say that that dilatory reflex was absent in people with high blood pressure. They evaluated carotid artery reactivity and brain blood flow in response to mental stress in 10 healthy young volunteers (aged between 19 and 27 years), 20 older healthy volunteers (aged 38 to 60 years) and in 28 patients with essential hypertension (aged 38 to 64 years). It was found that in healthy subjects, mental stress caused vasodilation, which was accompanied by a net increase in brain blood flow. The study has been published in BioMed Central's open access journal Cardiovascular Ultrasound