Research in the Erdos Lab is focused on understanding how stress, obesity and aging affect neuroendocrine regulation of blood pressure with an aim to identify novel therapeutic targets for the treatment of hypertension and cardiovascular diseases.

The paraventricular nucleus of the hypothalamus (PVN) is a complex structure composed of several subgroups of neurons involved in maintaining homeostasis, regulating autonomic and endocrine responses to internal or external stressors and controlling food intake and energy expenditure. The lab is investigating these regulatory mechanisms within the PVN in order to better understand the ways stress, changes in diet, age and the combination of these factors lead to elevations in blood pressure.

Ongoing projects are aimed to reveal the roles of neurotrophins such as brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) within the PVN and their involvement in acute stress  responses, adaptation to repeated stressors and regulation of food intake and energy balance.  They use whole animal, in vivo techniques such as radiotelemetric measurement of blood pressure in conscious animals, sympathetic nerve activity recording, stereotactic brain injections of pharmacological agents and viral vectors as well as a wide range of molecular techniques.

Recent work in the Erdos laboratory demonstrated that BDNF and angiotensin II signaling interact within the PVN to elicit acute increases in blood pressure and sympathetic activity, and that inhibition of BDNF signaling in the PVN can diminish acute stress-induced hypertensive responses.  Furthermore, they have shown that long-term upregulation of BDNF expression in the PVN leads to significant long-term increases in blood pressure in part by preventing brainstem noradrenergic neurons to exert their inhibitory role on PVN neurons that drive sympathetic activity.