{"id":16896,"date":"2019-08-06T09:00:14","date_gmt":"2019-08-06T07:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.embl.de\/?p=16896"},"modified":"2024-03-22T13:35:59","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T12:35:59","slug":"potw1932","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/","title":{"rendered":"The muscles that regulate blood pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Low blood pressure (hypotension) or high blood pressure (hypertension) are risk factors for many diseases and affect more than 20% of the global population. How blood pressure is regulated is part of the research done in the <\/span>Heppenstall group at EMBL Rome<\/span><\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In today’s Picture of the Week, you can see the blood flowing inside an artery (blood labelled in red). The blood vessel is encircled by numerous small vascular smooth muscle cells (yellow). These muscle cells are fundamental to regulating blood flow and so are very important in blood pressure control. When they are activated, they contract. The vessels then shrink, leading to an increase in blood pressure. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vascular smooth muscle cells contract in response to different stimuli coming from neurons and blood vessel cells. The focus of current research is to understand better the interaction between blood vessels and the nervous system, since this is fundamental to keeping blood pressure in a normal physiological range.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you have a stunning picture of your science, your lab or your site, you can submit it <\/span>here<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Low blood pressure (hypotension) or high blood pressure (hypertension) are risk factors for many diseases and affect more than 20% of the global population. How blood pressure is regulated is part of the research done in the Heppenstall group at EMBL Rome.  In today’s Picture of the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":16898,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,17591],"tags":[899,901,900,820],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-16896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-picture-of-the-week","category-science-technology","tag-blood-pressure","tag-hypertension","tag-hypotension","tag-picture-of-the-week"],"acf":{"article_intro":"","related_links":false,"article_sources":false,"vf_locked":false,"featured":false,"color":"#007B53","show_featured_image":false,"field_target_display":"embl","field_article_language":{"value":"english","label":"English"},"source_article":false,"in_this_article":false,"press_contact":"None","article_translations":false,"languages":""},"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe muscles that regulate blood pressure | EMBL<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Blood is flowing inside an artery (blood labelled in red). The artery is encircled by numerous small vascular smooth muscle cells (yellow).\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The muscles that regulate blood pressure | EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Blood is flowing inside an artery (blood labelled in red). The artery is encircled by numerous small vascular smooth muscle cells (yellow).\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"EMBL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-08-06T07:00:14+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-03-22T12:35:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"620\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"425\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Doreen Feike\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@embl\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Doreen Feike\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Doreen Feike\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/3e184687f7ad759d93d442f3b0b177ef\"},\"headline\":\"The muscles that regulate blood pressure\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-06T07:00:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-22T12:35:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/\"},\"wordCount\":184,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"blood pressure\",\"hypertension\",\"hypotension\",\"picture of the week\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Picture of the week\",\"Science & Technology\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/\",\"name\":\"The muscles that regulate blood pressure | EMBL\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-08-06T07:00:14+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2024-03-22T12:35:59+00:00\",\"description\":\"Blood is flowing inside an artery (blood labelled in red). The artery is encircled by numerous small vascular smooth muscle cells (yellow).\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg\",\"width\":620,\"height\":425,\"caption\":\"Credit: Sam Brown \/ Laura Castaldi \/ Chiara Morelli \/ EMBL\"},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/\",\"name\":\"European Molecular Biology Laboratory News\",\"description\":\"News from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\"},\"alternateName\":\"EMBL News\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization\",\"name\":\"European Molecular Biology Laboratory\",\"alternateName\":\"EMBL\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/EMBL_logo_colour-1-300x144-1.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/EMBL_logo_colour-1-300x144-1.png\",\"width\":300,\"height\":144,\"caption\":\"European Molecular Biology Laboratory\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/embl\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embl_org\/\",\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/15813\/\",\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/emblmedia\/\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/3e184687f7ad759d93d442f3b0b177ef\",\"name\":\"Doreen Feike\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ba467166ebf2e53c5042a97c0d3aeb76857903549a1a6b50c2b0f8257b8b0c14?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ba467166ebf2e53c5042a97c0d3aeb76857903549a1a6b50c2b0f8257b8b0c14?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Doreen Feike\"},\"description\":\"Doreen Feike has a passion for science communication and is actively involved in the outreach programme at EMBL. She studied biotechnology and has a PhD in plant science.\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/author\/doreen-feike\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The muscles that regulate blood pressure | EMBL","description":"Blood is flowing inside an artery (blood labelled in red). The artery is encircled by numerous small vascular smooth muscle cells (yellow).","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The muscles that regulate blood pressure | EMBL","og_description":"Blood is flowing inside an artery (blood labelled in red). The artery is encircled by numerous small vascular smooth muscle cells (yellow).","og_url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/","og_site_name":"EMBL","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/","article_published_time":"2019-08-06T07:00:14+00:00","article_modified_time":"2024-03-22T12:35:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":620,"height":425,"url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Doreen Feike","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@embl","twitter_site":"@embl","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Doreen Feike","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/"},"author":{"name":"Doreen Feike","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/3e184687f7ad759d93d442f3b0b177ef"},"headline":"The muscles that regulate blood pressure","datePublished":"2019-08-06T07:00:14+00:00","dateModified":"2024-03-22T12:35:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/"},"wordCount":184,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg","keywords":["blood pressure","hypertension","hypotension","picture of the week"],"articleSection":["Picture of the week","Science & Technology"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/","url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/","name":"The muscles that regulate blood pressure | EMBL","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg","datePublished":"2019-08-06T07:00:14+00:00","dateModified":"2024-03-22T12:35:59+00:00","description":"Blood is flowing inside an artery (blood labelled in red). The artery is encircled by numerous small vascular smooth muscle cells (yellow).","inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/picture-of-the-week\/potw1932\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg","width":620,"height":425,"caption":"Credit: Sam Brown \/ Laura Castaldi \/ Chiara Morelli \/ EMBL"},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/","name":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory News","description":"News from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization"},"alternateName":"EMBL News","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#organization","name":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory","alternateName":"EMBL","url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/EMBL_logo_colour-1-300x144-1.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/EMBL_logo_colour-1-300x144-1.png","width":300,"height":144,"caption":"European Molecular Biology Laboratory"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/embl.org\/","https:\/\/x.com\/embl","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/embl_org\/","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/15813\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/emblmedia\/"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/3e184687f7ad759d93d442f3b0b177ef","name":"Doreen Feike","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ba467166ebf2e53c5042a97c0d3aeb76857903549a1a6b50c2b0f8257b8b0c14?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/ba467166ebf2e53c5042a97c0d3aeb76857903549a1a6b50c2b0f8257b8b0c14?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Doreen Feike"},"description":"Doreen Feike has a passion for science communication and is actively involved in the outreach programme at EMBL. She studied biotechnology and has a PhD in plant science.","url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/author\/doreen-feike\/"}]}},"field_target_display":"embl","field_article_language":{"value":"english","label":"English"},"fimg_url":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg","featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/potw1932_preview.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16896","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16896"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16896\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20253,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16896\/revisions\/20253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16896"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=16896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}