Cerebrovascular disease and dementia: A primate model of hypertension and cognition

There is growing epidemiologic evidence that cardiovascular risk factors such as high serum cholesterol and hypertension are also risk factors for cognitive decline and/or dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease. But exactly how these different risk factors are linked to cognition is unclear. One way to address these correlations is by using animal models of cardiovascular disease. Many such models are available, but perhaps none is better suited to studying human cognition than non-human primate models. This article describes a rhesus monkey aorta coarctation model of hypertension and demonstrates how this might prove to be a very valuable model for studying the effect of hypertension on cognition.