TITLE:
Relationship between Changes in Cerebral Blood Flow with Symptoms of Acute Mountain Sickness in Men Repeatedly Exposed to Simulated High Altitude
AUTHORS:
Peter Ondruš, Roman Alberty, Timothy Lyons, Stephen Muza, Vincent Echavé, Jacques Poisson, Allen Cymerman
KEYWORDS:
High-Altitude Sickness, Cerebral Blood Flow, Hypobaric Hypoxia, Transcranial Doppler Sonography
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Physical Education,
Vol.7 No.1,
February
27,
2017
ABSTRACT: Objective: To study the relationship between changes in the cerebral blood flow (CBF) velocity with symptoms of acute mountain sickness (AMS) during simulated high altitude. Research Design and Methods: Mean middle arterial cerebral flow velocity (MCAv) was assessed by transcranial Doppler sonography in 8 healthy lowland male adults aged 20 - 24 yrs before and after 6 h and 48 h at simulated altitude corresponding to 4572 m. The same study was repeated three weeks later in the same subjects. End-tidal pCO2 (ETCO2) and arterial oxygen saturation (SaO2) were measured by standardized procedures. AMS symptoms were recorded using the modified environmental symptoms questionnaire after 6 h and 48 h exposure to calculate the mean score of cerebral (AMS-C) symptoms. Results: Mean MCAv significantly increased with high altitude (HA) by 4% at 6 h HA and 24% at 48 h HA (P 2 (mean ± SD 32 ± 4 mmHg; r = 0.47, P 2 (77% ± 8%; r = - 0.43, P 2 (r = - 0.55, P Conclusion: Our results suggest that there is a lack of relationship between changes in CBF velocity with symptoms of AMS, and that a substantial inter-subject variance exists in the CBF response to high altitude exposure.