Ventilatory changes in heat-stressed humans with spinal-cord injury.
METHODS
Single trial using matched subjects under tightly-controlled experimental conditions.


OBJECTIVE
Humans with spinal-cord injury have a reduced ability to dissipate heat. The current project examined the possibility that, in such people, an elevated ventilatory response (panting) may act as a supplementary avenue for heat loss.


METHODS
Australia, New South Wales.


METHODS
Breathing frequency was measured during a resting heat exposure (<or=2 h) in 10 subjects with spinal-cord injury (C4-L5), and in 10 mass- and age-matched, able-bodied subjects.


RESULTS
Subjects with spinal-cord injury displayed a ventilatory sensitivity, relative to mean body temperature change (2.4 breaths/min/ degrees C +/-0.9), more than twice that of able-bodied subjects (1.1 breaths/min/ degrees C +/-0.6; P=0.042). Furthermore, the higher the level of spinal-cord injury, the greater was the ventilatory response (r2=0.51, P=0.048).


CONCLUSIONS
While these ventilatory changes were apparently thermally mediated, they did not represent a true panting response, nor did the increased breathing frequency confer a physiologically significant thermoregulatory benefit that may help compensate for the loss of sympathetic flow to eccrine sweat glands and cutaneous blood vessels in people with spinal-cord injury.
Wilsmore
B R
BR
Department of Biomedical Science, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, Australia.
Cotter
J D
JD
Bashford
G M
GM
Taylor
N A S
NA
D000328:Adult; D001833:Body Temperature Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D005260:Female; D018882:Heat Stress Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D012119:Respiration; D013119:Spinal Cord Injuries / Q000503:physiopathology*; D013997:Time Factors