Blood flow, blood oxygen tension, oxygen uptake, and oxygen transport in skeletal muscle

Abstract

The effect of changes in blood flow and of blood oxygen tension on oxygen uptake of the in situ gastrocnemius-plantaris muscle group of the dog was examined. Oxygen uptake by resting muscle was not altered by changes in blood flow or blood oxygen tension except when these parameters were reduced below critical values. When the muscle group was contracting once per second, changes in blood oxygen tension were similarly without effect until a critically low value was reached. Although the contracting muscle used eight times as much oxygen per minute as resting muscle, the critical oxygen tension was lower than that for resting muscle. In an attempt to explain this observation the blood-tissue oxygen tension difference was estimated and used in the Krogh equation to calculate capillary density. The capillary density in contracting muscle was found to be much greater than in resting muscle and was about the same as the capillary density measured by others by histological techniques.