03 Jul 2009
People who suffer from mental stress and anger have increased brain blood flow and carotid artery dilation.
This is the conclusion from a series of experiments conducted by scientists at the University of Southern California and Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, US, who found that mental stress caused blood vessels to widen in healthy people.
Over the course of the study, volunteers underwent a number of tasks to provoke mental stress such as reading, arithmetic and anger recall tests.
Ultrasound imaging was used to measure the effects these tasks had on the carotid artery and the artery within the brain, while blood pressure and heart rate were also measured.
Tasneem Naqvi, who co-led the study, said it would be "interesting to see whether the lack of mental stress induced dilation we found defines subjects at increased risk of future cerebral events".
Anger is considered to be a secondary emotion. This is because something usually triggers a bad thought or feeling which can then result in a person beginning to feel angry.
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