Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions
Because the skin is an oxygen sensor in amphibians and mice, we thought to confirm this function also in humans. The human upright posture, however, introduces additional functional demands for the maintenance of oxygen homeostasis in which cerebral blood flow and autonomic nervous system (ANS) func...
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Public Library of Science
2012
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| Online Access: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3466185/ |
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pubmed-3466185 |
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pubmed-34661852012-10-10 Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions Pucci, Olivia Qualls, Clifford Battisti-Charbonney, Anne Balaban, Dahlia Y. Fisher, Joe A. Duffin, Jim Appenzeller, Otto Research Article Because the skin is an oxygen sensor in amphibians and mice, we thought to confirm this function also in humans. The human upright posture, however, introduces additional functional demands for the maintenance of oxygen homeostasis in which cerebral blood flow and autonomic nervous system (ANS) function may also be involved. We examined nine males and three females. While subjects were breathing ambient air, at sea level, we changed gases in a plastic body-bag during two conditions of the experiment such as to induce skin hypoxia (with pure nitrogen) or skin normoxia (with air). The subjects performed a test of hypoxic ventilatory drive during each condition of the experiment. We found no differences in the hypoxic ventilatory drive tests. However, ANS function and cerebral blood flow velocities were modulated by skin hypoxia and the effect was significantly greater on the left than right middle cerebral arteries. We conclude that skin hypoxia modulates ANS function and cerebral blood flow velocities and this might impact life styles and tolerance to ambient hypoxia at altitude. Thus the skin in normal humans, in addition to its numerous other functions, is also an oxygen sensor. Public Library of Science 2012-10-08 /pmc/articles/PMC3466185/ /pubmed/23056597 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0047116 Text en © 2012 Pucci et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited. |
| repository_type |
Open Access Journal |
| institution_category |
Foreign Institution |
| institution |
US National Center for Biotechnology Information |
| building |
NCBI PubMed |
| collection |
Online Access |
| language |
English |
| format |
Online |
| author |
Pucci, Olivia Qualls, Clifford Battisti-Charbonney, Anne Balaban, Dahlia Y. Fisher, Joe A. Duffin, Jim Appenzeller, Otto |
| spellingShingle |
Pucci, Olivia Qualls, Clifford Battisti-Charbonney, Anne Balaban, Dahlia Y. Fisher, Joe A. Duffin, Jim Appenzeller, Otto Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions |
| author_facet |
Pucci, Olivia Qualls, Clifford Battisti-Charbonney, Anne Balaban, Dahlia Y. Fisher, Joe A. Duffin, Jim Appenzeller, Otto |
| author_sort |
Pucci, Olivia |
| title |
Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions |
| title_short |
Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions |
| title_full |
Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions |
| title_fullStr |
Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions |
| title_full_unstemmed |
Human Skin Hypoxia Modulates Cerebrovascular and Autonomic Functions |
| title_sort |
human skin hypoxia modulates cerebrovascular and autonomic functions |
| description |
Because the skin is an oxygen sensor in amphibians and mice, we thought to confirm this function also in humans. The human upright posture, however, introduces additional functional demands for the maintenance of oxygen homeostasis in which cerebral blood flow and autonomic nervous system (ANS) function may also be involved. We examined nine males and three females. While subjects were breathing ambient air, at sea level, we changed gases in a plastic body-bag during two conditions of the experiment such as to induce skin hypoxia (with pure nitrogen) or skin normoxia (with air). The subjects performed a test of hypoxic ventilatory drive during each condition of the experiment. We found no differences in the hypoxic ventilatory drive tests. However, ANS function and cerebral blood flow velocities were modulated by skin hypoxia and the effect was significantly greater on the left than right middle cerebral arteries. We conclude that skin hypoxia modulates ANS function and cerebral blood flow velocities and this might impact life styles and tolerance to ambient hypoxia at altitude. Thus the skin in normal humans, in addition to its numerous other functions, is also an oxygen sensor. |
| publisher |
Public Library of Science |
| publishDate |
2012 |
| url |
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3466185/ |
| _version_ |
1611914358393143296 |