Integrative cardiorespiratory physiology

循环系统是所有脊椎动物必不可少的生命支持系统。心脏为生命维持系统提供动力。因此，心脏的设计和功能可以决定动物如何补偿、容忍和适应它们的环境。我的愿景是解决一个核心问题：在特定的环境中，哪些心血管特征允许生命存在？寻求使鱼类能够在极其多样化和不断变化的环境中生存的机制，特别强调过度升温和缺氧。考虑到北极、温带和热带鱼，以及耐受长时间缺氧/缺氧的不寻常鱼类。实验方法包括从整个动物的体内研究到电生理机制的细胞研究。具体的实验将检查缺氧不耐受的鳟鱼心脏，它可以预先调节提高缺氧耐受性，以及原始盲鳗心脏，通过未知机制抑制活动在缺氧中存活数天。这些关于缺氧生存的研究将集中在硫化氢作为心脏内源性代谢调节剂的潜在作用上。此外，将探索鲫鱼和金鱼心脏在缺氧情况下正常跳动数月的显着和独特能力。然而，大多数鱼的心脏是不耐缺氧的。因此，目前关于鲑鱼的热上限的假设是，工作心脏的氧气不足会引发心脏衰竭。研究将检验情况是否如此，是什么设定了最大心率，以及在缺氧时呼吸空气的鱼类的冠状动脉循环的作用。这个基础研究项目的发现有可能在生态学家那里找到应用，他们希望了解水生动物的分布如何受到环境的限制，渔业管理者寻求更好的工具来保护野生鱼类，以及那些对全球变暖对地球水生栖息地的影响感兴趣的人。

The circulatory system is an essential life support system for all vertebrates. The heart powers this life support system. Consequently, cardiac design and function can determine how animals compensate for, tolerate and adapt to their environment. My vision is to address a central question: What cardiovascular features permit life in a particular environment? Mechanisms are sought that permit fish survival in extremely diverse and changing environments, with a special emphasis on excessive warming and oxygen deprivation. Consideration is given to Arctic, temperate and tropical fishes, as well as unusual fishes that tolerant prolonged hypoxia/anoxia. The experimental approaches range from in vivo studies with whole animals through to cellular studies of electrophysiological mechanisms. Specific experiments will examine the hypoxia-intolerant trout heart, which can be pre-conditioned improve hypoxia tolerance, and the primitive hagfish heart, which survives anoxia for days by suppressing activity via unknown mechanisms. These studies of hypoxic survival will focus on the role that hydrogen sulphide potentially plays as an endogenous metabolic regulator of the heart. In addition, the remarkable and unique ability of the crucian carp and goldfish hearts to beat normally for months during anoxia will be explored. Most fish hearts, however, are hypoxia-intolerant. Thus, a current hypothesis for the upper thermal limit of salmon is that oxygen insufficiency for the working heart triggers cardiac collapse. Studies will examine whether or not this is the case, what sets maximum heart rate and the role of the coronary circulation in fishes that breathe air during hypoxia. Discoveries from this basic research program have the potential to find applications with ecologists who wish to known how aquatic animal distributions are limited by their environment, fisheries managers who seek better tools to conserve wild fish, and those who are interested in the impacts of global warming on the earth's aquatic habitats.