The effects of exercise on the chemical control of breathing in man

This thesis is concerned with the chemical control of breathing during exercise in humans.Chapter 1 reviews some of the relevant studies in animals and humans.Chapter 2 describes the experimental apparatus and the technique of dynamic end-tidal forcing performed using a computer-controlled gas-mixing system.Chapter 3 describes a study of the effects of sustained hypoxia on ventilation during steady exercise. The acute ventilatory response to hypoxia (AHR) was increased during exercise as compared with rest, but the magnitude of the subsequent decline in ventilation (HVD), expressed as a fraction of the AHR, was reduced. A simple model of the hypoxic peripheral chemoreflex is proposed, in which the mechanisms underlying AHR and HVD are functionally separate and can be independently modulated by external factors.Chapter 4 assesses changes in peripheral chemoreflex sensitivity to hypoxia in terms of the degree of decline in AHR measured in the resting periods shortly after prior conditioning periods of hypoxia and/or exercise. At rest, a second AHR measured 6 min after a period of sustained hypoxia had declined by 30% as compared with the initial AHR. In contrast, the AHR measured in the resting period after a period of sustained hypoxic exercise was only 11% smaller in magnitude than the AHR measured after a period of euoxic exercise. The results suggest that the degree to which hypoxic sensitivity declines during sustained hypoxia is genuinely attenuated, rather than masked, by exercise.Chapter 5 describes the changes in respiration during prolonged exercise breathing air with and without added CO2. During prolonged poikilocapnic exercise, ventilation remained constant, but metabolic CO2 production, respiratory quotient and end-tidal PCO2 declined; a result which suggests that in man, ventilation can be dissociated from the CO2 flux. During hypercapnic exercise, ventilation progressively increased; this was interpreted as being due to a correction by end-tidal forcing of the natural tendency for end-tidal CO2 to decline, together with an independent effect of CO2 per se on the ventilation.Chapter 6. Electrical muscle stimulation was used as means of inducing non-volitional exercise. Electrically-induced exercise increased the AHR as compared with rest, and with voluntary exercise at matched external work rate. The AHRs during electrical stimulation and voluntary exercise matched to the internal work rate were similar.Chapter 7. Electrical muscle stimulation was used in paraplegic subjects in whom there would be no neural control of exercise. Electrically-induced exercise increased the AHR as compared with rest. When compared with the data from Chapter 6, the results suggest that the observed increase in AHR during normal voluntary exercise can be wholly accounted for by the increase in metabolic CO2 production, or closely related factors.Chapter 8 presents a brief summary of the findings in this thesis.