In vivo pressure-flow relation of human cutaneous vessels following prolonged iterative exposures to hypergravity

Abstract

The study examined intra- and interlimb variations in cutaneous vessel responsiveness to acute and repeated transmural pressure elevations. In 11 healthy men, red blood cell flux was assessed via laser-Doppler flowmetry on both glabrous and nonglabrous skin regions of an arm (finger and forearm) and leg (toe and lower leg), across a wide range of stepwise increasing distending pressures imposed in the vessels of each limb separately. The pressure-flux cutaneous responses were evaluated before and after 5 wk of intermittent (40 min, 3 sessions per week) exposures to hypergravity (∼2.6–3.3 G; G training). Before and after G training, forearm and lower leg blood flux were relatively stable up to ∼210 and ∼240 mmHg distending pressures, respectively; and then they increased two- to threefold ( P < 0.001). Finger blood flux dropped promptly ( P < 0.001), regardless of the G training ( P = 0.64). At ≤120-mmHg distending pressures, toe blood flux enhanced by ∼40% ( P ≤ 0.05); the increase was augmented after the G training ( P = 0.01). At high distending pressures, toe blood flux dropped by ∼70% in both trials ( P < 0.001). The present results demonstrate that circulatory autoregulation is more pronounced in glabrous skin than in nonglabrous skin, and in nonglabrous sites of the leg than in those of the arm. Repetitive high-sustained gravitoinertial stress does not modify the pressure-flow relationship in the dependent skin vessels of the arm nor in the nonglabrous sites of the lower leg. Yet it may partly inhibit the myogenic responsiveness of the toe’s glabrous skin.