“…The topographic distribution of atherosclerotic lesions in the human arterial tree has been extensively surveyed [1,2,3,4,5] and athero-prone (AP) as well as athero-resistant (AR) areas of the aorta have been identified and mapped [1,2,5]. However, why some areas are prone to lesion formation is not clear, nor have the structural alterations prior to the identification of frank atherosclerotic lesions been well studied [1,2,3,4,5,6,7].…”