PhD student
Supervisor: Dr. Maureen MacDonald
Masters Student
Professor; Provost and Vice-President (Academic)
Most of us realize that our blood vessels play an important role in transporting blood to and from all of the tissues of our body. The human cardiovascular system is continually adapting to and co-coordinating the differing requirements of the body tissues and the energy demands of skeletal muscle alone are capable of changing 100 fold within seconds of the onset of a new task. Blood vessels are much more than static tubes for transporting blood. The structure and function of our blood vessels can adapt to challenges they are presented with and can change significantly in both health and disease. Two important features of our arteries (blood vessels which transport blood away from the heart) are how flexible (stiffness) they are and how much they can expand (dilate) when faced with the challenges of increasing pressure and/or flow. We know that these two features, stiffness and dilation, change with disease processes, aging, spinal cord injury and some exercise programs but we know very little about what regulates these changes. In my laboratory we have been studying the role that exercise, which can result in large pressure and flow challenges to the arteries, plays in changing arterial structure and function. We examine the responses of a variety of components of the cardiovascular system to exercise challenges in order to determine control mechanisms. The specific cardiovascular variables, which are central to this research, are blood pressure, blood flow and arterial stiffness, diameter, wall thickness and dilation. Objectives of my research program include examination of the impact of alterations in vessel stiffness and function on skeletal muscle blood flow responses both at rest, and during exercise. Our continuing studies will focus on the use of cutting edge ultrasound technology to examine blood vessel stiffness and regional blood flow in both healthy and clinical populations. The insight gained from these studies will assist in advancing the current basic knowledge of the cardiovascular system as well as identifying the effectiveness of exercise as an intervention in determining basic cardiovascular regulation and in improving health status and lifestyle.
Research Lab Manager