Environmental physiology & field research

Environmental stressors such as heat, altitude, space and diving provide a better understanding of how the human body is able to cope with challenges to homeostasis. Our lab has been active in environmental physiology since 2012 with research work performed in China, Canada, Bolivia, Germany & Croatia. We have found physiologically and clinically significant and important findings related to blood flow through intrapulmonary arteriovenous anastomoses and patent foramen ovale with respect to pulmonary hypertension, pulmonary gas exchange efficiency, acute mountain sickness susceptibility, thermoregulation and ventilatory responses to heat and cold and SCUBA and breath hold diving. Our lab group is a driving force in this research area (for review see Lovering, Elliott & Davis Journal of Applied Physiology 2016).

Most significant publications in this area:

J.E. Elliott, S.S. Laurie, J.P. Kern, K.M. Beasley, R.D. Goodman, B. Kayser, A.W. Subudhi, R.C. Roach & A.T. Lovering. AltitudeOmics: Impaired pulmonary gas exchange efficiency and ventilatory acclimatization in humans with a PFO following 16 days at 5260 m. J Appl Physiol 118:1100-1112, 2015. PMID: 25678698

H. Liu, Y. Zhang, H. Wu, G.G. Yegutkin, A. D’Alessandro, A. Song, K. Sun, J. Lee, N-Y. Cheng, A. Huang, Y.E. Wen, H. Sun, R.E. Kellems, H. Karmouty-Quintana, T.T. Wen, T. Nemkov, K.C. Hansen, A.W. Subudhi, S. Jameson-Van Houten, C.G. Julian, A.T. Lovering, H.K. Eltzschig, M. Blackburn, R.C. Roach, and Y. Xia. Beneficial role of erythrocyte adenosine A2B receptor-mediated AMP-activated protein kinase activation in high altitude hypoxia. Circulation 134(5): 405-21, 2016. PMID:27482003

A. Song, Y. Zhang, L. Han, G. Yegutkin, H. Liu, K. Sun, A. D'Alessandro, J. Li, H. Karmouty-Quintana, T. Iriyama, T. Weng, S. Zhao, W. Wang, H. Wu, T. Nemkov, A. Subudhi, S. Jameson-Van Houten, C. Julian, A. Lovering, K. Hansen, H. Zhang, M. Bogdanov, W. Dowhan, J. Jin, R. Kellems, H. Eltzschig, M. Blackburn, R. Roach, and Y. Xia. Erythrocytes retain hypoxic adenosine response for faster acclimatization upon re-ascent" Nat. Commun. 8, 14108, doi: 10.1038/ncomms14108 (2017). PMID: 28169986

F.A. Petrassi, J.E. Davis, K.M. Beasley, N. Evero, J. E. Elliott, R.D. Goodman, J.E. Futral, A.W. Subudhi, J. Manuel Solano-Altamirano, Saul Goldman R.C. Roach, A.T. Lovering. AltitudeOmics: Effect of reduced barometric pressure on detection of intrapulmonary shunt, pulmonary gas exchange efficiency and total pulmonary resistance. J Appl Physiol 124(5): 1363-1376, 2018. doi: PMID:29357511