The purpose of this study was to determine whether the reduced conditioned fear response in spontaneously hypertensive rats (SHRs) relative to Wistar-Kyoto controls (WKYs); (a) reflects a decrease in fear in SHRs or an increase in fear in WKYs, relative to other strains; (b) is secondary to strain differences in cardiovascular regulation; (c) represents a weaker conditioned response or a weaker memory trace; and (d) generalizes beyond tests of conditioned fear. SHRs, WKYs and Sprague-Dawley (SD) rats were subjected to classical fear conditioning (30 trials) involving the pairing of a tone conditioned emotional stimulus (CES: 800 Hz, 82 dB, 10 s) with an electric footshock unconditioned stimulus (US: 1.5 mA, 0.5 s). Cardiovascular responses elicited by the CES (without the US) were assessed through computer assisted techniques in chronically instrumented animals. Conditioned fear behavior was assessed as the proportion of time accounted for by crouching or freezing during a 300 s presentation of the CES without the US. Unconditioned fear reactivity was examined using the open field test. Conditioned fear reactivity (% freezing during 300 s CES) was reduced (P less than 0.01) in SHRs relative to both WKYs and SDs, which did not differ (SHR: 57% +/- 5; WKY 85% +/- 3; SD: 93% +/- 4). Young (7 week) and mature (14 week) animals within each strain differed in resting mean arterial pressure (MAP, in mm Hg) (WKY: young , 102 +/- 1; mature, 133 +/- 2; P less than 0.01; SHR: young, 124 +/- 3; mature, 153 +/- 5; P less than 0.01) but did not differ in conditioned fear reactivity (WKY: young, 91% +/- 3; mature, 93% +/- 3; SHR: young, 47% +/- 3; mature, 62% +/- 8.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)