The effect of local warming on hand and finger artery blood
velocities.
Bergersen, T. K., M. Eriksen&L. Walloe
Department of Physiology, University of Oslo, P.O. Box 1103
Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway
APStracts 2:0065R, 1995.
The effect of local heating on blood velocities in arteries supplying
the skin of hand and fingers was studied in subjects kept in their
thermoneutral zone. The temperature of one hand was steadily raised
from 35 degrees C to 43 degrees C in 15 minutes, while the control
hand was kept in the air or immersed in a water bath at 35 degrees C.
Simultaneous blood velocity recordings from the two hands were made
continuously using ultrasound Doppler. In the heated hand, a general
rise in blood velocity level was seen. However, the spontaneous
fluctuations in blood velocity assumed to be caused by synchronous
vasomotor activity of the arteriovenous anastomoses (AVAs) remained
unchanged and closely correlated with those in the control hand
throughout the experiment. Thus, the central nervous control of AVA
vasomotion seems to be unaffected by local heating. The elevation of
blood velocity in the heated hand is probably due to dilatation of
other parts of the vascular bed e.g. ordinary arterioles in the skin.
Earlier investigators, using venous occlusion plethysmography, have
reported vasoconstriction in the locally heated human finger. No sign
of such heat-induced vasoconstriction (HIVC) was found in this study.
Received 21 September 1994; accepted in final form 24 February
1995.
APS Manuscript Number R543-4.
Article publication pending Am. J. Physiol. (Regulatory Integrative
Comp. Physiology).
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1995 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 10 March 1995.