Forearm training attenuates sympathetic responses to prolonged rhythmic forearm exercise.

We previously demonstrated that nonfatiguing rhythmic forearm exercise at 25% maximal voluntary contraction (12 2-s contractions/min) evokes sympathoexcitation without significant engagement of metabolite-sensitive muscle afferents (B.A. Batman, J.C. Hardy, U.A. Leuenberger, M.B. Smith, Q.X. Yang and L.I. Sinoway. J. Appl. Physiol. 76: 1077-1081, 1994). This is in contrast to the sympathetic nervous system responses observed during fatiguing static forearm exercise where metabolite-sensitive afferents are the key determinants of sympathetic activation. In this report we examined whether forearm exercise training would attenuate sympathetic nervous system responses to rhythmic forearm exercise. We measured heart rate, mean arterial blood pressure (MAP), muscle sympathetic nerve activity (microneurography), plasma norepinephrine (NE), and NE spillover and clearance (tritiated NE kinetics) during nonfatiguing rhythmic forearm exercise before and after a 4-wk unilateral forearm training paradigm. Training had no effect on forearm mass, maximal voluntary contraction, or heart rate but did attenuate the increase in MAP (increase in MAP: from 15.2 +/- 1.8 before training to 11.4 +/- 1.4 mmHg after training; P < 0.017), muscle sympathetic nerve activity (increase in bursts: from 10.8 +/- 1.4 before training to 6.2 +/- 1.1 bursts/min after training; P < 0.030), and the NE spillover (increases in arterial spillover: from 1.3 +/- 0.2 before training to 0.6 +/- 0.2 nmol.min-1.m-2 after training, P < 0.014; increase in venous spillover: from 2.0 +/- 0.6 before training to 1.0 +/- 0.5 nmol.min-1.m-2 after training, P < 0.037) seen in response to exercise performed by the trained forearm. Thus forearm training reduces sympathetic responses during a nonfatiguing rhythmic handgrip paradigm that does not engage muscle metaboreceptors. We speculate that this effect is due to a conditioning-induced reduction in mechanically sensitive muscle afferent discharge.

Norepinephrine kinetics and cardiac output during nonhypotensive lower body negative pressure.

Recently we have shown that arterial norepinephrine (NE) concentration increases significantly during lower body negative pressure (LBNP) of -15 mmHg. Interestingly, the increase was found to be related predominantly to a decrease in arterial NE clearance. We postulated that this reduction in clearance would be related to a reduction in cardiac output. Accordingly, we measured both cardiac output (2-dimensional echocardiographic/Doppler technique) and arterial NE kinetics ([3H]NE continuous infusion radiotracer technique) during LBNP of -15 mmHg. These measures of cardiac output and arterial NE spillover and clearance were obtained in 12 normal subjects at baseline, 5 and 10 min (Early) and 25 and 30 min (Late) of LBNP. We found that arterial NE concentration increased significantly, by 25% Early and 22% Late (P = 0.001). Spillover, however, did not change (P = 0.258), whereas clearance decreased by 12% Early and 19% Late (P = 0.014), and cardiac output decreased by 15% Early and 19% Late (P = 0.001). These reductions in clearance and cardiac output correlated significantly (r = 0.61, P = 0.001). No correlation was noted between spillover and cardiac output (r = 0.027, P = 0.874). We conclude that the increases in arterial NE concentration during nonhypotensive LBNP are predominantly due to decreased cardiac output with resultant decreases in systemic clearance of NE. These findings suggest that the ability to clear NE from the circulation is linked to the level of cardiac output and that low cardiac output states by themselves may lead to an elevation in arterial plasma NE concentrations.

Physiologic and structural indices of vascular function in paraplegics.

In an effort to determine whether chronic physical forearm activity would increase both structural and physiologic indices of peripheral forearm vasodilation, we studied a group (N = 7) of individuals chronically performing high levels of arm work, young wheelchair-confined paraplegics, and compared them with ten young, able bodied control subjects. The index of vasodilator capacity was the flow response following the release of 10 min of arterial occlusion, the peak reactive hyperemic blood flow response (RHBF). The index of a structural effect of training on the vasculature was the brachial artery diameter (cm) derived by simultaneous measurement of velocity and forearm blood flow (area = flow.forearm volume.velocity-1). Vascular function differed significantly between the groups, with a greater RHBF (paraplegics, 53.8 +/- 3.7; controls, 38.2 +/- 1.5 ml.min-1.100 ml-1; P less than 0.05) and a larger brachial artery diameter at rest (paraplegics, 0.4 +/- 0.01 vs controls, 0.3 +/- 0.02 cm; P less than 0.05) in the paraplegics. We conclude that chronic upper extremity activity leads to an enhanced capability to vasodilate resistance vessels acutely and to a structural dilation of large conductance vessels.