Integrated cardiovascular control responses to physical activity in humans

我们对体育活动的耐受性对我们的生活质量起着重要作用，这在一定程度上取决于我们肌肉对氧气的需求得到满足的程度。这就要求心血管系统在保持动脉血压的同时，不断调整血液流向活跃的肌肉。要实现这些目标，心脏需要调整泵入血管的血量，血管需要变宽或变窄，以调整流向肌肉和其他组织的血量(因此需要氧气)。我的研究计划集中在寻找基本问题的答案：在体力活动中，心脏和血管是如何工作的，以向肌肉输送足够的氧气？以及“运动训练如何提高他们的能力？”特别是，我的工作重点是当体力活动强度增加或减少时，心脏和血管调整的速度有多快，因为我们的大多数活动的特点是强度不断变化。这项研究计划目前的具体目标是：1)确定不同类型的个体之间的心血管运动反应，以及这些反应对运动耐量差异的预测能力；2)确定运动训练是否可以改善对活跃肌肉的氧气输送增加的速度和程度，以及“全力以赴”的冲刺运动在这方面是否更有效。这项研究将提供重要的新发现，促进对我们的心脏和血管如何发挥功能以支持体育活动的理解。这些基础研究是未来调查的跳板，目的是了解这一功能可能如何受损，从而影响加拿大人的生活质量，以及可以做些什么来防止这种情况。

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.