Measuring and Quantifying Sympathetic Control of the Cutaneous Microvasculature (Webinar: Jody Greaney)

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In this webinar, Dr. Jody Greaney provides an overview of microneurography to measure skin sympathetic nervous system activity, with a focus on data analysis, interpretation and its application coupled with laser Doppler flowmetry.


Key Learning Objectives:   

  • Understand the utility of microneurography as a means to measure and quantify skin sympathetic nervous system activity during thermal perturbations in humans
  • Understand the considerations related to the analysis, quantification, and interpretation of microneurographic recordings of skin sympathetic nervous system activity
  • Understand the application of these methodological approaches for assessing sympathetic control of microvascular function during whole-body environmental stressors

Abstract:
Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century and will continue to result in more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting extreme heat events, all of which have dire implications for nearly every aspect of human life. Older adults are particularly vulnerable to heat exposure, and excessive heat-related mortality in aged adults can be partly attributed to the cardiovascular consequences of age-related impairments in thermoregulatory reflex function. In a series of studies, Dr. Jody Greaney’s laboratory has used microneurography to directly record skin sympathetic nervous system activity in conscious aged humans during environmental provocations as a means to examine the efferent arc of the thermoregulatory reflex axis.

This presentation provides a brief overview of the development of the technique of microneurography, with a focus on the unique issues related to its analysis, quantification and interpretation. It also discusses how this approach, coupled with laser Doppler flowmetry-derived estimates of skin blood flow, has helped to advance our understanding of age-related alterations in thermoregulatory reflex function.

Additional resources:

Data Collection & Analysis in Human Autonomic Research: How to Guide Successful Testing»
Microneurography – Recording Nerve Traffic Via Intraneural Microelectrodes in Awake Human Subjects »
Data Analysis for Microneurography – LabChart Software Demonstration »


About the speaker:

Jody Greaney sympathetic control of cutaneous microvasculature webinar ADI

Jody L. Greaney, PhD
Assistant Professor, Kinesiology
University of Texas at Arlington
Dr. Jody Greaney earned her doctoral degree at the University of Delaware and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at The Pennsylvania State University. In January 2019, Dr. Greaney joined the Department of Kinesiology at The University of Texas at Arlington as an Assistant Professor. Her laboratory is currently investigating the mechanisms and modulators of neurovascular dysfunction in human depression.

 

 


Laser Doppler Flow with Pulse

Laser Doppler Flowmetry with ADI

Measure blood flow non-invasively in humans and record relative changes in skin perfusion with a PowerLab and the Laser Doppler Blood FlowMeter.

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