Cardiorespiratory dynamics

在我们的日常生活中，我们必须不断适应不断变化的姿势或身体活动的要求。我的研究计划采取了综合的观点，从细胞水平到整个身体适应这些日常挑战的融合信息。当我们开始体力活动时，心血管系统必须适应并将含氧血液泵送到工作的肌肉。在肌肉中，氧气输送与代谢过程相互作用，以提供完成任务所需的能量。我的研究已经开发出敏感的方法来非侵入性地跟踪锻炼人类的心血管适应性，现在将扩展到包括磁共振光谱，这是一种非侵入性的方法来监测运动肌肉内的氧气和代谢变化。我们的工作将揭示有关控制机制的更多细节，并将为研究代谢过程异常或限制肌肉血液供应的疾病的个体奠定坚实的基础。每天从床上起来，我们的心血管控制系统必须有效地运作，这样我们才能保持直立的姿势而不会晕倒。虽然我们知道女性在避免心血管疾病方面比男性有很多优势，但女性站立时头晕或昏厥的发生率也相对较高。重要的是要检查两性之间的差异，以确定心血管系统如何调节血液流向身体较低区域（腿部或腹部）的分布，而不是脑血流量。最近的证据表明，个体之间调节血压能力的差异至少部分是由于编码各种心血管结构（包括血管上的雌激素受体）的遗传信息的微小差异。通过研究基因型与通过改变姿势维持血压的能力之间的关系，我们将更全面地了解为什么个体之间存在巨大差异，我们将能够指出可以防止健康男性和女性昏厥的具体方法。

In our every day lives, we must constantly adapt to demands of changing posture or physical activity. My research program has taken an integrative perspective to merge information from the cellular level through to whole body adaptations to these daily challenges. When we begin physical activity, the cardiovascular system must adapt and pump blood containing oxygen to the working muscles. At the muscles, oxygen delivery interacts with the metabolic processes to supply the energy required to accomplish the task. My research has developed sensitive methods to non-invasively track the cardiovascular adaptations in exercising humans and will now expand to include magnetic resonance spectroscopy which is a non-invasive method to monitor changes in oxygen and metabolism inside an exercising muscle. Our work will reveal greater detail about control mechanisms and it will establish a solid basis upon which to study individuals who have abnormalities in their metabolic processes or diseases that limit supply of blood flow to the muscles. Each day on rising from bed, our cardiovascular control systems must function efficiently so that we can maintain an upright posture without fainting. While we know that women have many advantages over men in their avoidance of cardiovascular diseases, women also have a relatively greater incidence of dizziness or fainting when they stand. It is important to examine the differences between the sexes to determine how the cardiovascular system regulates the distribution of blood flow to the lower regions of the body in the legs or abdomen compared to brain blood flow. Recent evidence is suggesting that differences between individuals in their ability to regulate blood pressure is due at least in part to small differences in the genetic information that codes for various cardiovascular structures including estrogen receptors on blood vessels. By studying the relationship between the genotype and the ability to maintain blood pressure with a change in posture we will gain a more complete understand why large differences exist between individuals and we will be able to point to specific approaches that can prevent fainting in otherwise healthy men and women.