Integrating mechanisms of thermal impact on neuromuscular function

我们的实验室主要研究人体在极端温度下的功能。在这一领域，一个重要的问题是，为什么人类不能在炎热的环境中比在凉爽的环境中锻炼得更努力或更长时间。从历史上看，这一点的主要观点是通过出汗使心脏更努力地工作而流失液体。然而，在过去的20年里，人们提出并证明了许多其他的新想法，包括我们的实验室表明，即使皮肤或肌肉本身保持凉爽，热的大脑也不太能够招募和激活肌肉。从那以后，我们通过观察脑血流或脑血液化学（两者都可能随着体温的升高而变化）如何影响肌肉功能来进一步研究这一点。然而，大多数研究都是关于静态肌肉运动的，这可能与大脑在全身运动中控制肌肉的方式不同。

Our lab has a main research focus on how the human body functions during extreme temperatures. In this field, an important question is why humans cannot exercise as hard or for as long in hot compared to cooler conditions. Historically, the main idea for this is suggested to be the loss of fluid through sweating making the heart work harder. However, many other new ideas have been proposed and demonstrated over the last twenty years, including our lab showing that a hot brain is less able to recruit and activate muscles, even if the skin or muscle itself is kept cool. We have since studied this further by looking at how brain blood flow or brain blood chemistry, both of which may change with high body temperatures, can affect muscle function. However, most of this research is on static muscle movements, which may not be similar to how the brain controls muscle during whole-body exercise.