Integrated cardiovascular control responses to physical activity in humans

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Our tolerance for physical activity plays an important role in our quality of life, and depends in part on how well our muscle's demand for oxygen is met. This requires that the cardiovascular system constantly adjusts blood flow to active muscles while maintaining arterial blood pressure. Accomplishing these goals requires the heart to adjust the amount of blood that it pumps into the blood vessels, and the blood vessels to widen or narrow to adjust how much blood (and therefore oxygen) flows to the muscle and other tissue. My research program focuses on finding answers to the fundamental questions "How do the heart and blood vessels work to deliver adequate amounts of oxygen to muscle during physical activity?" and "How does exercise training improve their ability to do so?" In particular my work has focused on how quickly the heart and blood vessels adjust when the intensity of physical activity increases or decreases, because most of our activities are characterized by continually changing intensity. The current specific objectives of this research program are to 1) identify different types of cardiovascular exercise responses between individuals and how well these predict differences in exercise tolerance, and 2) identify whether exercise training can improve how quickly and how much oxygen delivery to active muscle can increase, and if "all out" sprint type exercise is more effective at this. This research will provide important new findings that advance understanding of how our heart and blood vessels function to support physical activity. Such basic research is the springboard for future investigations aimed at understanding how this function may be impaired and therefore affect the quality of life of Canadians, and what can be done to prevent that.