Blood flow (BF) increases with increasing exercise intensity in skeletal, respiratory, and cardiac muscle. In humans during maximal exercise intensities, 85% to 90% of total cardiac output is distributed to skeletal and cardiac muscle. During exercise BF increases modestly and heterogeneously to brain and decreases in gastrointestinal, reproductive, and renal tissues and shows little to no change in skin. If the duration of exercise is sufficient to increase body/core temperature, skin BF is also increased in humans. Because blood pressure changes little during exercise, changes in distribution of BF with incremental exercise result from changes in vascular conductance. These changes in distribution of BF throughout the body contribute to decreases in mixed venous oxygen content, serve to supply adequate oxygen to the active skeletal muscles, and support metabolism of other tissues while maintaining homeostasis. This review discusses the response of the peripheral circulation of humans to acute and chronic dynamic exercise and mechanisms responsible for these responses. This is accomplished in the context of leading the reader on a tour through the peripheral circulation during dynamic exercise. During this tour, we consider what is known about how each vascular bed controls BF during exercise and how these control mechanisms are modified by chronic physical activity/exercise training. The tour ends by comparing responses of the systemic circulation to those of the pulmonary circulation relative to the effects of exercise on the regional distribution of BF and mechanisms responsible for control of resistance/conductance in the systemic and pulmonary circulations.

Endothelial adaptations to exercise training are not exclusively conferred within the active muscle beds. Herein, we summarize key studies that have evaluated the impact of chronic exercise on the endothelium of vasculatures perfusing nonworking skeletal muscle, brain, viscera, and skin, concluding with discussion of potential mechanisms driving these endothelial adaptations.

Acute leg exercise increases brachial artery retrograde shear rate (SR), while chronic exercise improves vasomotor function. These combined observations are perplexing given the proatherogenic impacts of retrograde shear stress on the vascular endothelium and may be the result of brief protocols used to study acute exercise responses. Therefore, we hypothesized that brachial artery retrograde SR increases initially but subsequently decreases in magnitude during prolonged leg cycling. Additionally, we tested the role of cutaneous vasodilation in the elimination of increased retrograde SR during prolonged exercise. Brachial artery diameter and velocity profiles and forearm skin blood flow and temperature were measured at rest and during 50 min of steady-state, semirecumbent leg cycling (120 W) in 14 males. Exercise decreased forearm vascular conductance (FVC) and increased retrograde SR at 5 min (both P < 0.05), but subsequently forearm and cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC) rose while retrograde SR returned toward baseline values. The elimination of increased retrograde SR was related to the increase in FVC (r(2) = 0.58; P < 0.05) and CVC (r(2) = 0.32; P < 0.05). Moreover, when the forearm was cooled via a water-perfused suit between minutes 30 and 40 to blunt cutaneous vasodilation attending exercise, FVC was reduced and the magnitude of retrograde SR was increased from -49.7 ± 13.6 to -78.4 ± 16.5 s(-1) (P < 0.05). Importantly, these responses resolved with removal of cooling during the final 10 min of exercise (retrograde SR: -46.9 ± 12.5 s(-1)). We conclude that increased brachial artery retrograde SR at the onset of leg cycling subsequently returns toward baseline values due in part to thermoregulatory cutaneous vasodilation during prolonged exercise.

Padilla J, Young CN, Simmons GH, Deo SH, Newcomer SC, Sullivan JP, Laughlin MH, Fadel PJ. Increased muscle sympathetic nerve activity acutely alters conduit artery shear rate patterns. Am J Physiol Heart Circ Physiol 298: H1128 -H1135, 2010. First published February 12, 2010 doi:10.1152/ajpheart.01133.2009.-Escalating evidence indicates that disturbed flow patterns, characterized by the presence of retrograde and oscillatory shear stress, induce a proatherogenic endothelial cell phenotype; however, the mechanisms underlying oscillatory shear profiles in peripheral conduit arteries are not fully understood. We tested the hypothesis that acute elevations in muscle sympathetic nerve activity (MSNA) are accompanied by increases in conduit artery retrograde and oscillatory shear. Fourteen healthy men (25 Ϯ 1 yr) performed three sympathoexcitatory maneuvers: graded lower body negative pressure (LBNP) from 0 to Ϫ40 Torr, cold pressor test (CPT), and 35% maximal voluntary contraction handgrip followed by postexercise ischemia (PEI). MSNA (microneurography; peroneal nerve), arterial blood pressure (finger photoplethysmography), and brachial artery velocity and diameter (duplex Doppler ultrasound) in the contralateral arm were recorded continuously. All maneuvers elicited significant increases in MSNA total activity from baseline (P Ͻ 0.05). Retrograde shear (Ϫ3.96 Ϯ 1.2 baseline vs. Ϫ8.15 Ϯ 1.8 s Ϫ1 , Ϫ40 LBNP, P Ͻ 0.05) and oscillatory shear index (0.09 Ϯ 0.02 baseline vs. 0.20 Ϯ 0.02 arbitrary units, Ϫ40 LBNP, P Ͻ 0.05) were progressively augmented during graded LBNP. In contrast, during CPT and PEI, in which MSNA and blood pressure were concomitantly increased (P Ͻ 0.05), minimal or no changes in retrograde and oscillatory shear were noted. These data suggest that acute elevations in MSNA are associated with an increase in conduit artery retrograde and oscillatory shear, an effect that may be influenced by concurrent increases in arterial blood pressure. Future studies should examine the complex interaction between MSNA, arterial blood pressure, and other potential modulatory factors of shear rate patterns. sympathetic tone; blood pressure; blood flow; endothelium; atherosclerosis ATHEROSCLEROSIS IS A POTENTIALLY life-threatening disease of large and medium-size arteries that is strongly associated with systemic risk factors such as physical inactivity, obesity, hypercholesterolemia, hypertension, smoking, and diabetes (30). However, the predictable distribution of atherosclerosis indicates that localized hemodynamic environments may also influence the atherosclerotic disease process (31). Indeed, postmortem (36) and in vivo imaging studies (10) demonstrate that atherosclerotic lesions are preferentially located in regions distinguished by oscillatory (bidirectional blood flow) and low mean shear stress, whereas areas exposed to unidirectional and moderate shear are protected. A causal link between disturbed flow patterns and a proatherogenic endothelial cell phenotype has been extensively confirmed by in vitro studi...

Hypoxia and hypercapnia represent special challenges to homeostasis because of their effects on sympathetic outflow and vascular smooth muscle. In the cutaneous vasculature, even small changes in perfusion can shift considerable blood volume to the periphery and thereby impact both blood pressure regulation and thermoregulation. However, little is known about the influence of hypoxia and hypercapnia on this circulation. In the present study, 35 healthy subjects were instrumented with two microdialysis fibers in the ventral forearm. Each site was continuously perfused with saline (control) or bretylium tosylate (10 mM) to prevent sympathetically mediated vasoconstriction. Skin blood flow was assessed at each site (laser-Doppler flowmetry), and cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC) was calculated as red blood cell flux/mean arterial pressure and normalized to baseline. In 13 subjects, isocapnic hypoxia (85 and 80% O(2) saturation) increased CVC to 120 +/- 10 and 126 +/- 7% baseline in the control site (both P < 0.05) and 113 +/- 3 (P = 0.087) and 121 +/- 4% baseline (P < 0.05) in the bretylium site. Adrenergic blockade did not affect the magnitude of this response (P > 0.05). In nine subjects, hyperpnea (matching hypoxic increases in tidal volume) caused no change in CVC in either site (both P > 0.05). In 13 subjects, hypercapnia (+5 and +9 Torr) increased CVC to 111 +/- 4 and 111 +/- 4% baseline, respectively, in the control site (both P < 0.05), whereas the bretylium site remained unchanged (both P > 0.05). Thus both hypoxia and hypercapnia cause modest vasodilation in nonacral skin. Adrenergic vasoconstriction of neural origin does not restrain hypoxic vasodilation, but may be important in hypercapnic vasodilation.

Heat is the most abundant byproduct of cellular metabolism. As such, dynamic exercise in which a significant percentage of muscle mass is engaged generates thermoregulatory demands that are met in part by increases in skin blood flow. Increased skin blood flow during exercise adds to the demands on cardiac output and confers additional circulatory strain beyond that associated with perfusion of active muscle alone. Endurance exercise training results in a number of physiological adaptations which ultimately reduce circulatory strain and shift thermoregulatory control of skin blood flow to higher levels of blood flow for a given core temperature. In addition, exercise training induces peripheral vascular adaptations within the cutaneous microvasculature indicative of enhanced endothelium-dependent vasomotor function. However, it is not currently clear how (or if) these local vascular adaptations contribute to the beneficial changes in thermoregulatory control of skin blood flow following exercise training. The purpose of this Hot Topic review is to synthesize the literature pertaining to exercise training-mediated changes in cutaneous microvascular reactivity and thermoregulatory control of skin blood flow. In addition, we address mechanisms driving changes in cutaneous microvascular reactivity and thermoregulatory control of skin blood flow, and pose the question: what (if any) is the functional role of increased cutaneous microvascular reactivity following exercise training?

We recently observed a marked increase in brachial artery (BA) diameter during prolonged leg cycling exercise. The purpose of the present study was to test the hypothesis that this increase in BA diameter during lower limb exercise is shear stress mediated. Accordingly, we determined whether recapitulation of cycling-induced BA shear rate with forearm heating, a known stimulus evoking shear-induced conduit artery dilatation, would elicit comparable profiles and magnitudes of BA vasodilatation to those observed during cycling. In 12 healthy men, BA diameter and blood velocity were measured simultaneously using Doppler ultrasonography at baseline and every 5 min during 60 min of either steady-state semi-recumbent leg cycling (120 W) or forearm heating. At the onset of cycling, the BA diameter was reduced (−3.9 ± 1.2% at 5 min; P < 0.05), but it subsequently increased throughout the remainder of the exercise bout (+15.1 ± 1.6% at 60 min; P < 0.05). The increase in BA diameter during exercise was accompanied by an approximately 2.5-fold rise in BA mean shear rate (P < 0.05). Similar increases in BA mean shear with forearm heating elicited an equivalent magnitude of BA vasodilatation to that observed during cycling (P > 0.05). Herein, we found that in the absence of exercise the extent of the BA vasodilator response was reproduced when the BA was exposed to comparable magnitudes of shear rate via forearm heating. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that shear stress plays a key role in signalling brachial artery vasodilatation during dynamic leg exercise.

Abstract-Aging has been recently associated with increased retrograde and oscillatory shear in peripheral conduit arteries, a hemodynamic environment that favors a proatherogenic endothelial cell phenotype. We evaluated whether nitric oxide (NO) bioavailability in resistance vessels contributes to age-related differences in shear rate patterns in upstream conduit arteries at rest and during rhythmic muscle contraction. Younger (nϭ11, age 26Ϯ2 years) and older (nϭ11, age 61Ϯ2 years) healthy subjects received intra-arterial saline (control) and the NO synthase inhibitor N G -Monomethyl-L-arginine. Brachial artery diameter and velocities were measured via Doppler ultrasound at rest and during a 5-minute bout of rhythmic forearm exercise. At rest, older subjects exhibited greater brachial artery retrograde and oscillatory shear (Ϫ13.2Ϯ3.0 s Ϫ1 and 0.11Ϯ.0.02 arbitrary units, respectively) compared with young subjects (Ϫ4.8Ϯ2.3 s Ϫ1 and 0.04Ϯ0.02 arbitrary units, respectively; both PϽ0.05). NO synthase inhibition in the forearm circulation of young, but not of older, subjects increased retrograde and oscillatory shear (both PϽ0.05), such that differences between young and old at rest were abolished (both PϾ0.05). From rest to steady-state exercise, older subjects decreased retrograde and oscillatory shear (both PϽ0.05) to the extent that no exercise-related differences were found between groups (both PϾ0.05). Inhibition of NO synthase in the forearm circulation did not affect retrograde and oscillatory shear during exercise in either group (all PϾ0.05). These data demonstrate for the first time that reduced NO bioavailability in the resistance vessels contributes, in part, to age-related discrepancies in resting shear patterns, thus identifying a potential mechanism for increased risk of atherosclerotic disease in conduit arteries. (Hypertension. 2011;57:484-489.) Key Words: age Ⅲ retrograde shear stress Ⅲ oscillatory shear stress Ⅲ nitric oxide bioavailability Ⅲ vascular conductance T he nonuniform distribution of atherosclerosis throughout the arterial tree suggests that localized factors such as hemodynamic forces can modulate the susceptibility of the endothelium to dysfunction. Atherosclerotic lesions are indeed preferentially developed in regions distinguished by oscillatory (bidirectional blood flow) and low-time average shear stress; however, areas subjected to unidirectional and high shear (within a physiological range) exhibit an atheroresistant endothelial phenotype. [1][2][3][4][5] The remarkable capacity of endothelial cells to discern among different shear signals has been extensively demonstrated by in vitro cell/organ culture 6 -15 and in vivo animal studies, 16 -20 as well as more recently in healthy humans. 21,22 Indeed, human data indicate that an acute increase in retrograde and oscillatory shear in peripheral conduit arteries is associated with a reduction in endothelium-dependent dilation, 21 while the opposite is also true; that is, transient removal of retrograde and oscillatory shear, in con...