2.14. Pulse Wave Velocity (PWV) Measurement in Mice

In order to evaluate the arterial stiffness in mice aorta, mice PWV were measured as described previously [16]. In brief, mice were anesthetized with 2% pentobarbital sodium and placed on a temperature-controlled electrocardiogram board. Doppler spectrograms of aortic flow at the branch of the left carotid artery and coeliac trunk were acquired with a 30-MHz pulsed Doppler probe (FUJIFILM VisualSonics). The propagation time for the pulse wave moving from the branch of the left carotid artery to the coeliac trunk was measured. Mice were sacrificed in order to evaluate the distance between the branch of the left carotid artery and the coeliac trunk. Then aortic PWV was calculated by the distance between two measurement locations divided by the propagation time.