All animals were used in accordance with the guidelines of the National Institutes of Health Institute of Laboratory Animal Resources, 1996) and American Heart Association for the care and use of laboratory animals. The procedures were performed in accordance with experimental protocols that were approved by the University Committee on Animal Resources at the University of Rochester. C57/BL6 male mice were purchased from The Jackson Laboratory (Bar Harbor, ME). Animals were housed under a 12-h light-dark regimen. Cardiac remodeling was induced in vivo by subcutaneous infusion of Ang II (800 ng/min/kg) for 2 weeks or corresponding vehicle using Alzet osmotic mini-pumps (model 1002, Durect Corp, Cupertino, CA) as described previously [12 (link), 13 (link)]. Animals at age of 10 weeks were anesthetized with inhaled isoflurane and osmotic mini-pumps were implanted subcutaneously on the back slightly posterior to the scapulae. For systemic vinpocetine treatment, mice were intraperitoneally injected with 5 mg/kg vinpocetine or vehicle every day as described previously [10 (link), 11 (link)]. Blood pressure was recorded by tail artery blood pressure measurement. Mouse hearts were excised, excised hearts were washed with saline to remove the blood, and the whole hearts were weighed. Hearts were used for histological and immunoblotting analyses.