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I. The Environmental Physiology/Hyperbaric Medicine Unit -- This unique laboratory allows the staff to manipulate the external environment using a distinctive hypo/hyperbaric environmental chamber, which can simulate various altitudes, depths, or temperatures precisely. This laboratory has performed pivotal research for the United States Olympic Committee that has influenced the training and performance of athletes throughout the world. Moreover, this “Olympic caliber” scientific effort has been focused on the problems of children with congenital heart disease (who can’t get oxygen into their bodies normally), as well as elderly individuals who want to travel to moderate altitudes for recreational purposes. Clinically, the physicians in the Hyperbaric Medicine Unit take advantage of the hyperbaric chamber to increase the pressure of oxygen in the air, allowing more oxygen to get to the tissues which improves wound healing in patients with diabetes, or suffering the ravages of cancer or chronic infections. This unit is also being used for emergency treatment of carbon monoxide poisoning and the “bends,” and further serves as the basis of the Aerospace Medicine Program which simulates high altitude emergency conditions that pilots may experience. Finally, patients with heart or lung disease are referred by their physicians for evaluation prior to flying in a plane, or traveling to a high altitude environment.In addition, a unique Executive Aerospace Program is available to the public. The environmental chamber is used to help pilots to experience the effects of low levels of oxygen at altitude, simulating an aircraft decompression. This 4 hour course involves both classroom and chamber modules. |
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Cardiopulmonary Exercise Lab |
The Cardiopulmonary Exercise Laboratory -- This laboratory has the unique ability to measure how much air the lungs can move, as well as how much blood the heart can pump, during exercise. Physicians and scientists do this in order to identify the precise mechanisms by which exercise performance may be limited or improved in individuals ranging from Olympic athletes to octogenarians, and/or patients with obesity, heart disease, or lung disease. A major research focus of this laboratory is the determination of how changes in lung function with aging or obesity lead to shortness of breath and reduced exercise capacity. Clinical patients who have unexplained shortness of breath are referred by their physicians for testing to assist in distinguishing between the heart and the lung abnormalities that may contribute to their symptoms. |
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Swimming Flume/Water Immersion |
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This unique facility incorporates a distinctive “swimming treadmill” by which physicians and scientists can study this popular competitive recreational and therapeutic activity under controlled conditions. Swimmers can be filmed above or under water through a special viewing window while measures of lung, heart, or metabolic function are monitored. A deep-water immersion tank is designed to study the physiology of cold and warm water immersion, as well as providing a tool for precisely measuring body composition. It can also be used to alter the physiological load on heart and lung function similar to micro-gravity and obesity. |
Cardiovascular Physiology/Autonomic Function Laboratory |
| The Cardiovascular Physiology/Autonomic Function Laboratory -- This laboratory uses state-of-the-art invasive and non-invasive technology for the examination of the heart, brain and cardiovascular system function in health and disease. Investigators in this laboratory have a special relationship with NASA, and are supported by a number of grants from NASA, National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, and the Doris Duke Foundation. This laboratory specializes in studying how deconditioning (i.e., bed rest or space flight) affects the heart and circulation, and how blood pressure, heart and brain function are regulated in normal aging, hypertension and heart failure. This “space age science” is also focused on patients who are referred for evaluation of difficult to control high blood pressure or conversely, excessively low blood pressure which may cause patients to feel dizzy or faint when standing. |
Thermoregulation/ Skin Blood Flow Laboratory |
| The Thermoregulation/Skin Blood Flow Laboratory -- This laboratory employs novel strategies to investigate the neural control of skin blood flow, which is important to maintaining normal body temperature in health and disease and in environmental conditions like Texas summers. Investigators are able to measure skin blood flow and control mechanisms to examine normal and abnormal temperature regulation. Patients with diseases that compromise the circulation, like heart failure, multiple sclerosis, burns, or heat stroke are studied to determine how to reduce their risk for heat injury. |
Neuromuscular Center
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The Neuromuscular Diseases Center -- This internationally renowned research and clinical center receives referrals from all over the world for the specialized work being done on diseases of muscle metabolism, in which the muscle is unable to use normal fuel to produce energy. Patients who have had a history of lifetime muscular fatigue and exercise intolerance are studied and individualized, novel, treatments are prescribed. |
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The Biochemistry Laboratory -- This shared resource supports the activities of all the other laboratories in the Institute and is a nationally recognized laboratory for the study of skeletal muscle metabolism. Samples of skeletal muscle may also be sent for quality histochemistry stains and interpretation by our pathologists and physicians in the Neuromuscular Center. |
rev. 1/2008