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An Individualized, Perception-Based Protocol to Investigate Human Physiological Responses to Cooling

Overview of attention for article published in Frontiers in Physiology, March 2018
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Title
An Individualized, Perception-Based Protocol to Investigate Human Physiological Responses to Cooling
Published in
Frontiers in Physiology, March 2018
DOI 10.3389/fphys.2018.00195
Pubmed ID
Authors

Crystal L. Coolbaugh, Emily C. Bush, Elizabeth S. Galenti, E. Brian Welch, Theodore F. Towse

Abstract

Cold exposure, a known stimulant of the thermogenic effects of brown adipose tissue (BAT), is the most widely used method to study BAT physiology in adult humans. Recently, individualized cooling has been recommended to standardize the physiological cold stress applied across participants, but critical experimental details remain unclear. The purpose of this work was to develop a detailed methodology for an individualized, perception-based protocol to investigate human physiological responses to cooling. Participants were wrapped in two water-circulating blankets and fitted with skin temperature probes to estimate BAT activity and peripheral vasoconstriction. We created a thermoesthesia graphical user interface (tGUI) to continuously record the subject's perception of cooling and shivering status during the cooling protocol. The protocol began with a 15 min thermoneutral phase followed by a series of 10 min cooling phases and concluded when sustained shivering (>1 min duration) occurred. Researchers used perception of cooling feedback (tGUI ratings) to manually adjust and personalize the water temperature at each cooling phase. Blanket water temperatures were recorded continuously during the protocol. Twelve volunteers (ages: 26.2 ± 1.4 years; 25% female) completed a feasibility study to evaluate the proposed protocol. Water temperature, perception of cooling, and shivering varied considerably across participants in response to cooling. Mean clavicle skin temperature, a surrogate measure of BAT activity, decreased (-0.99°C, 95% CI: -1.7 to -0.25°C, P = 0.16) after the cooling protocol, but an increase in supraclavicular skin temperature was observed in 4 participants. A strong positive correlation was also found between thermoesthesia and peripheral vasoconstriction (ρ = 0.84, P < 0.001). The proposed individualized, perception-based protocol therefore has potential to investigate the physiological responses to cold stress applied across populations with varying age, sex, body composition, and cold sensitivity characteristics.

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Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 24 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 24 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Researcher 6 25%
Student > Ph. D. Student 4 17%
Student > Master 4 17%
Professor > Associate Professor 2 8%
Student > Bachelor 1 4%
Other 0 0%
Unknown 7 29%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 4 17%
Sports and Recreations 3 13%
Engineering 2 8%
Computer Science 1 4%
Social Sciences 1 4%
Other 3 13%
Unknown 10 42%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 1. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 March 2018.
All research outputs
#17,933,348
of 23,028,364 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Physiology
#7,243
of 13,775 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#242,693
of 333,594 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Physiology
#229
of 406 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,028,364 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 19th percentile – i.e., 19% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 13,775 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 7.6. This one is in the 40th percentile – i.e., 40% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 333,594 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 22nd percentile – i.e., 22% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 406 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one is in the 34th percentile – i.e., 34% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.