Portal hypertension is responsible for a major part of complications of liver disease. The increase in portal pressure is attributable to an enhanced vascular resistance followed by an increase in portal venous inflow. The causes of the increase in portal resistance can be prehepatic (i.e., portal venous thrombosis), intrahepatic (most often cirrhosis), or posthepatic (Budd-Chiari syndrome). Furthermore, intrahepatic portal hypertension can be classified as presinusoidal, sinusoidal, and postsinusoidal; the last type being characteristic for human cirrhosis.The increase in portal resistance is accompanied by severe disturbances of the systemic and splanchnic circulation and activation of vasoactive hormones leading to plasma volume expansion, increased cardiac output, systemic hypotension, vasodilatation, and increased portal venous inflow, often mentioned as the hyperdynamic circulatory dysfunction.One of the most frequent and serious complications of portal hypertension is bleeding from esophageal or gastric varices. The risk and prognosis depend on the degree of portal hypertension, endoscopic characteristics, and liver dysfunction. Treatment aims at reducing portal pressure or obliterating varices by endoscopic ligation. A nonselective b-blocker (propranolol, nadolol, or timolol) is the pharmacologic treatment most often used as primary or secondary prophylaxis against variceal bleeding. The effect of propranolol is a combination of a b-1 effect, with a decrease in cardiac output and thereby a decrease in portal venous inflow, and a b-2 effect inducing an increase in portocollateral resistance, which reduces the flow in the varices evidenced by a decrease in azygos venous blood flow [1]. The effect of propranolol varies and only approximately 40% of treated patients achieve a reduction of the hepatic venous pressure gradient (HVPG) to values below 12 mmHg or a reduction of HVPG of more than 20%, which seem to be crucial for the prevention of bleeding from varices. Although treatment with a breceptor blocker is efficacious as primary and secondary prophylaxis against variceal bleeding, recent studies indicate lack of effect as pre-primary prophylaxis on the development of varices.A major part of our understanding of the pathophysiologic mechanisms of portal hypertension has been based on animal models, particularly in rats [2]. The most extensively studied rat models have been conducted using partial portal vein ligation, which is a presinusoidal portal hypertension model, and common bile duct ligation (CBDL) and carbon tetrachloride (CCL 4 )-induced cirrhosis, which both resemble sinusoidal portal hypertension. Because of difference in etiology and type of the experimental portal hypertension model, pharmacologic effects may differ between these models [3].In the present issue of the journal, Fizanne et al.[4] investigated the hemodynamic effects of propranolol in CBDL and CCL 4 rats. Apart from having sinusoidal portal hypertension, rat models differ from cirrhosis in humans, who have postsinusoidal hyperte...