Aim To observe the characteristic of intracranial large arterial lesions that were induced by experimental hypertension.Methods A morphometric study was performed on middle cerebral artery and basal artery in stroke-prone renovascular hypertensive rats and the morphometric values afert antihypertensive therapy with captopril were compared with those in non-antihypertensive rats.Results It was found that enhanced media thickness was presented in both middle cerebral artery and basal artery. It was mainly induced by hypertrophy and hyperplasia of smooth muscle cells in middle cerebral artery and by mural remodeling in basal artery. The hypertrophy and hyperplasia of smooth muscle cells were depressed, but the remodeling did not reverse to be sufficient to bring about full normalization after antihypertensive therapy.Conclusion These results indicate that the main lesion of intracranial arteries is enhanced media thickness, but different vessels have different reaction to hypertension and antihypertensive therapy.