Peripheral vascular control in humans

人类的日常活动需要心血管系统不断调整血液流动，以锻炼肌肉，同时保持动脉血压。为了实现这些目标，心脏需要调节泵入血管的血液量，而血管则需要通过扩大或缩小来调节流向肌肉和其他组织的血液量。肌肉对血流的需求比身体其他任何器官系统都要大得多，所以运动是对心血管系统最大的挑战。因此，我的研究项目旨在了解运动中如何控制动脉和静脉血管的扩张和狭窄，以及它如何受到年龄和运动训练的影响。特别是，我的工作集中在运动开始或结束时发生的调整，这决定了血管扩张或缩小的速度。这是因为人类活动的特点是不断变化的活动水平，因此血管的反应速度变得非常重要。我的研究项目的具体目标包括：1)确定运动中动脉血管快速扩张或收缩的机制；2)如何控制静脉的扩张和收缩；3)训练和衰老的影响。我们期望发现人类的静脉和动脉一样受到同样的控制（我们对人类静脉的控制知之甚少，我们是少数几个有能力找到这个问题答案的实验室之一）。我们还预计会发现，衰老会降低血管在运动时的功能，但这可以通过运动训练得到很大程度的恢复，这凸显了积极运动对维持心血管系统功能的重要性。这项工作将为促进我们对血管功能和结构及其影响因素的理解提供必要的、新颖的信息。这些基础研究为未来的研究提供了必要的基础，旨在了解血管如何失去功能，从而影响个人的健康，以及如何预防这种情况。

Everyday human activity requires that the cardiovascular system constantly adjusts blood flow to exercising 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 flows to the muscle and to other tissue.  Muscle can increase its demand for blood flow far beyond that of any other organ system in the body, so exercise represents the single greatest challenge to the cardiovascular system.  My research program is therefore aimed at understanding how arterial and venous blood vessel widening and narrowing is controlled in exercise, and how it is affected by aging and exercise training.  In particular, my work has focussed on adjustments that occur when exercise starts or ends which determine how fast the blood vessels widen or narrow.  This is because human activity is characterized by continually changing levels of activity, so the speed with which the blood vessels respond becomes very important.  The specific objectives of my research program include identifying 1) mechanisms determining rapid widening or narrowing of arterial blood vessels in exercise 2) how the widening and narrowing of veins is controlled 3) the effects of training and aging.  We anticipate finding that veins in humans are subject to the same kind of control as arteries (little is known about control of veins in humans, and we are one of only a handful of laboratories equipped to find answers to this question).  We also anticipate finding that aging reduces the function of blood vessels when responding to exercise, but that this can be substantially restored through exercise training, highlighting the importance of being active for maintaining the function of our cardiovascular system.  This work will provide essential, novel information for advancing our understanding of blood vessel function and structure and the factors that influence it.  Such basic research provides the necessary basis for future investigations aimed at understanding how blood vessels might lose their function and therefore affect the health of an individual, and what can be done to prevent that.