Reliability of muscle blood flow and oxygen consumption response from exercise using near‐infrared spectroscopy

Abstract

New Findings r What is the central question of this study?Continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy, coupled with venous and arterial occlusions, offers an economical, non-invasive alternative to measuring skeletal muscle blood flow and oxygen consumption, but its reliability during exercise has not been established. r What is the main finding and its importance?Continuous-wave near-infrared spectroscopy devices can reliably assess local skeletal muscle blood flow and oxygen consumption from the vastus lateralis in healthy, physically active adults. The patterns of response exhibited during exercise of varying intensity agree with other published results using similar methodologies, meriting potential applications in clinical diagnosis and therapeutic assessment.Near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS), coupled with rapid venous and arterial occlusions, can be used for the non-invasive estimation of resting local skeletal muscle blood flow (mBF) and oxygen consumption (mV O 2 ), respectively. However, the day-to-day reliability of mBF and mV O 2 responses to stressors such as incremental dynamic exercise has not been established. The aim of this study was to determine the reliability of NIRS-derived mBF and mV O 2 responses from incremental dynamic exercise. Measurements of mBF and mV O 2 were collected in the vastus lateralis of 12 healthy, physically active adults [seven men and five women; 25 (SD 6) years old] during three non-consecutive visits within 10 days. After 10 min rest, participants performed 3 min of rhythmic isotonic knee extension (one extension every 4 s) at 5, 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30% of maximal voluntary contraction (MVC), before four venous occlusions and then two arterial occlusions. The mBF and mV O 2 increased proportionally with intensity [from 0.55 to 7.68 ml min −1 (100 ml) −1 and from 0.05 to 1.86 ml O 2 min −1 (100 g) −1 , respectively] up to 25% MVC, where they began to plateau at 30% MVC. Moreover, an mBF/mV O 2 muscle oxygen consumption ratio of ß5 was consistent for all exercise stages. The intraclass correlation coefficient for mBF indicated high to very high reliability for 10-30% MVC (0.82-0.9). There was very high reliability for mV O 2 across all exercise stages (intraclass correlation coefficient 0.91-0.96). In conclusion, NIRS can reliably assess muscle blood flow and oxygen consumption responses to low-to moderate-intensity exercise, meriting potential applications in clinical diagnosis and therapeutic assessment.

Effect of leg immersion in mild warm carbonated water on skin and muscle blood flow

“…This study has several limitations. First, we did not directly measure muscle blood flow, but NIRS-determined HbO 2 reflects changes in muscle blood flow (Fadel et al 2004;Hachiya et al 2008;Lucero et al 2018) albeit with an influence of SkBF (Ogoh et al 2014;Hirasawa et al 2015Hirasawa et al , 2016. Muscle blood flow in humans may be evaluated using positron-emission tomography or magnetic resonance imaging (Heinonen et al 2011), but is not feasible during water immersion.…”

“…In the present study, we hypothesized that acute immersion in carbonated, but not tap water, at 38°C increases muscle blood flow. We evaluated PA blood flow by duplex ultrasound and gastrocnemius muscle oxyhemoglobin concentration (HbO 2 ) using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) as an index of muscle blood flow (Fadel et al 2004;Hachiya et al 2008;Lucero et al 2018) during acute immersion of both lower legs in carbonated and tap water at 38°C.…”

Effects of acute prolonged sitting on cerebral perfusion and executive function in young adults: A randomized cross‐over trial

“…For each time point (10 min, 90 min, 170 min, post-), data were averaged over 30 s and expressed relative to supine baseline. Our laboratory has previously reported that the Portalite device is able to monitor changes in tHb with acceptable validity and reliability (intraclass correlation, ICC, range: 0.75-0.98; Lucero et al, 2017;Stone, Fryer, Ryan, & Stoner, 2016) and changes in TSI with acceptable reliability (ICC: 0.7-0.9; Lucero et al, 2017).…”

Research Toolbox for Peripheral Arterial Disease ― Minimally Invasive Assessment of the Vasculature and Skeletal Muscle ―

“…Additionally, the rate of change in total hemoglobin following venous occlusion is used to determine skeletal muscle microvascular blood flow. 55,56 Briefly, a tourniquet, placed upstream from the site of interest, is inflated to a subdiastolic pressure (e.g., 100 mmHg) to occlude venous outflow while minimally obstructing arterial inflow. Blood flow is then calculated by evaluating the linear increase in total hemoglobin during the first few seconds of the occlusion.…”