The effects of ice vest pre-cooling on skin blood flow at rest and during exercise in the heat

© 2015 The Authors. Published by BMC. This is an open access article available under a Creative Commons licence. The published version can be accessed at the following link on the publisher’s website: https://doi.org/10.1186/2046-7648-4-S1-A127Ice vest pre-cooling has been show to lower rectal temperature during intermittent exercise in hot conditions but only after 40 min of exercise [1]. The authors suggested that the ice vest may have initiated a strong local cutaneous vasoconstrictor response reducing skin blood flow [2] and thus the cooling potential, until increases in body temperature and skin blood flow occurred later in exercise. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine whether ice vest pre-cooling reduces skin blood flow during intermittent exercise in the heat compared to a no cooling control.Published versio

Sclerostin's role in bone's adaptive response to mechanical loading

Mechanical loading is the primary functional determinant of bone mass and architecture, and osteocytes play a key role in translating mechanical signals into (re)modelling responses. Although the precise mechanisms remain unclear, Wnt signalling pathway components, and the anti-osteogenic canonical Wnt inhibitor Sost/sclerostin in particular, play an important role in regulating bone's adaptive response to loading. Increases in loading-engendered strains down-regulate osteocyte sclerostin expression, whereas reduced strains, as in disuse, are associated with increased sclerostin production and bone loss. However, while sclerostin up-regulation appears to be necessary for the loss of bone with disuse, the role of sclerostin in the osteogenic response to loading is more complex. While mice unable to down-regulate sclerostin do not gain bone with loading, Sost knockout mice have an enhanced osteogenic response to loading. The molecular mechanisms by which osteocytes sense and transduce loading-related stimuli into changes in sclerostin expression remain unclear but include several, potentially interlinked, signalling cascades involving periostin/integrin, prostaglandin, estrogen receptor, calcium/NO and Igf signalling. Deciphering the mechanisms by which changes in the mechanical environment regulate sclerostin production may lead to the development of therapeutic strategies that can reverse the skeletal structural deterioration characteristic of disuse and age-related osteoporosis and enhance bones' functional adaptation to loading. By enhancing the osteogenic potential of the context in which individual therapies such as sclerostin antibodies act it may become possible to both prevent and reverse the age-related skeletal structural deterioration characteristic of osteoporosis

The Universe is not a Computer

When we want to predict the future, we compute it from what we know about the present. Specifically, we take a mathematical representation of observed reality, plug it into some dynamical equations, and then map the time-evolved result back to real-world predictions. But while this computational process can tell us what we want to know, we have taken this procedure too literally, implicitly assuming that the universe must compute itself in the same manner. Physical theories that do not follow this computational framework are deemed illogical, right from the start. But this anthropocentric assumption has steered our physical models into an impossible corner, primarily because of quantum phenomena. Meanwhile, we have not been exploring other models in which the universe is not so limited. In fact, some of these alternate models already have a well-established importance, but are thought to be mathematical tricks without physical significance. This essay argues that only by dropping our assumption that the universe is a computer can we fully develop such models, explain quantum phenomena, and understand the workings of our universe. (This essay was awarded third prize in the 2012 FQXi essay contest; a new afterword compares and contrasts this essay with Robert Spekkens' first prize entry.)Comment: 10 pages with new afterword; matches published versio

Bone gain following loading is site-specifically enhanced by prior and concurrent disuse in aged male mice

The primary aim of osteoanabolic therapies is to strategically increase bone mass in skeletal regions likely to experience high strains. In the young healthy skeleton, this is primarily achieved by bone's adaptation to loading. This adaptation appears to fail with age, resulting in osteoporosis and fractures. We previously demonstrated that prior and concurrent disuse enhances bone gain following loading in old female mice. Here, we applied site specificity micro-computed tomography analysis to map regional differences in bone anabolic responses to axial loading of the tibia between young (19-week-old) and aged (19-month-old), male and female mice. Loading increased bone mass specifically in the proximal tibia in both sexes and ages. Young female mice gained more cortical bone than young males in specific regions of the tibia. However, these site-specific sex differences were lost with age such that bone gain following loading was not significantly different between old males and females. To test whether disuse enhances functional adaption in old male mice as it does in females, old males were subjected to sciatic neurectomy or sham surgery, and loading was initiated four days after surgery. Disuse augmented tibial cortical bone gain in response to loading in old males, but only in regions which were load-responsive in the young. Prior and concurrent disuse also increased loading-induced trabecular thickening in the proximal tibia of old males. Understanding how diminished background loading rejuvenates the osteogenic loading response in the old may improve osteogenic exercise regimes and lead to novel osteoanabolic therapies

The cyclooxygenase-2 selective inhibitor NS-398 does not influence trabecular or cortical bone gain resulting from repeated mechanical loading in female mice.

SUMMARY: A single injection of the cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) selective inhibitor NS-398 reduces bone’s osteogenic response to a single period of mechanical loading in female rats, while women taking COX-2 selective inhibitors do not have lower bone mass. We show that daily NS-398 injection does not influence bone gain from repeated loading in female mice. INTRODUCTION: Prostaglandins are mediators of bone cells’ early response to mechanical stimulation. COX-2 expression is up-regulated by exposure of these cells to mechanical strain or fluid flow, and the osteogenic response to a single loading period is reduced by COX-2 inhibition. This study determined, in female mice in vivo, the effect of longer term COX-2 inhibition on adaptive (re)modelling of cortical and trabecular bone in response to repeated loading. METHODS: Nineteen-week-old female C57BL/6 mice were injected with vehicle or NS-398 (5 mg/kg/day) 5 days a week for 2 weeks. On three alternate days each week, the right tibiae/fibulae were axially loaded [40 cycles (7 min)/day] three hours after injection. Left limbs acted as internal controls. Changes in three-dimensional bone architecture were analysed by high-resolution micro-computed tomography. RESULTS: In control limbs NS-398 was associated with reduced trabecular number but had no influence on cortical bone. In loaded limbs trabecular thickness and cortical periosteally enclosed volume increased. NS-398 showed no effect on this response. CONCLUSION: Pharmacological inhibition of COX-2 by NS-398 does not affect trabecular or cortical bone’s response to repeated mechanical loading in female mice and thus would not be expected to impair the functional adaptation of bone to physical activity in women

Quantification of Alterations in Cortical Bone Geometry Using Site Specificity Software in Mouse models of Aging and the Responses to Ovariectomy and Altered Loading.

Investigations into the effect of (re)modeling stimuli on cortical bone in rodents normally rely on analysis of changes in bone mass and architecture at a narrow cross-sectional site. However, it is well established that the effects of axial loading produce site-specific changes throughout bones' structure. Non-mechanical influences (e.g., hormones) can be additional to or oppose locally controlled adaptive responses and may have more generalized effects. Tools currently available to study site-specific cortical bone adaptation are limited. Here, we applied novel site specificity software to measure bone mass and architecture at each 1% site along the length of the mouse tibia from standard micro-computed tomography (μCT) images. Resulting measures are directly comparable to those obtained through μCT analysis (R (2) > 0.96). Site Specificity analysis was used to compare a number of parameters in tibiae from young adult (19-week-old) versus aged (19-month-old) mice; ovariectomized and entire mice; limbs subjected to short periods of axial loading or disuse induced by sciatic neurectomy. Age was associated with uniformly reduced cortical thickness and site-specific decreases in cortical area most apparent in the proximal tibia. Mechanical loading site-specifically increased cortical area and thickness in the proximal tibia. Disuse uniformly decreased cortical thickness and decreased cortical area in the proximal tibia. Ovariectomy uniformly reduced cortical area without altering cortical thickness. Differences in polar moment of inertia between experimental groups were only observed in the proximal tibia. Aging and ovariectomy also altered eccentricity in the distal tibia. In summary, site specificity analysis provides a valuable tool for measuring changes in cortical bone mass and architecture along the entire length of a bone. Changes in the (re)modeling response determined at a single site may not reflect the response at different locations within the same bone

Bones' adaptive response to mechanical loading is essentially linear between the low strains associated with disuse and the high strains associated with the lamellar/woven bone transition.

There is a widely held view that the relationship between mechanical loading history and adult bone mass/strength includes an adapted state or "lazy zone" where the bone mass/strength remains constant over a wide range of strain magnitudes. Evidence to support this theory is circumstantial. We investigated the possibility that the "lazy zone" is an artifact and that, across the range of normal strain experience, features of bone architecture associated with strength are linearly related in size to their strain experience. Skeletally mature female C57BL/6 mice were right sciatic neurectomized to minimize natural loading in their right tibiae. From the fifth day, these tibiae were subjected to a single period of external axial loading (40, 10-second rest interrupted cycles) on alternate days for 2 weeks, with a peak dynamic load magnitude ranging from 0 to 14 N (peak strain magnitude: 0-5000 µε) and a constant loading rate of 500 N/s (maximum strain rate: 75,000 µε/s). The left tibiae were used as internal controls. Multilevel regression analyses suggest no evidence of any discontinuity in the progression of the relationships between peak dynamic load and three-dimensional measures of bone mass/strength in both cortical and cancellous regions. These are essentially linear between the low-peak locomotor strains associated with disuse (∼300 µε) and the high-peak strains derived from artificial loading and associated with the lamellar/woven bone transition (∼5000 µε). The strain:response relationship and minimum effective strain are site-specific, probably related to differences in the mismatch in strain distribution between normal and artificial loading at the locations investigated

Protein kinase Cα (PKCα) regulates bone architecture and osteoblast activity.

Bones' strength is achieved and maintained through adaptation to load bearing. The role of the protein kinase PKCα in this process has not been previously reported. However, we observed a phenotype in the long bones of Prkca(-/-) female but not male mice, in which bone tissue progressively invades the medullary cavity in the mid-diaphysis. This bone deposition progresses with age and is prevented by disuse but unaffected by ovariectomy. Castration of male Prkca(-/-) but not WT mice results in the formation of small amounts of intramedullary bone. Osteoblast differentiation markers and Wnt target gene expression were up-regulated in osteoblast-like cells derived from cortical bone of female Prkca(-/-) mice compared with WT. Additionally, although osteoblastic cells derived from WT proliferate following exposure to estradiol or mechanical strain, those from Prkca(-/-) mice do not. Female Prkca(-/-) mice develop splenomegaly and reduced marrow GBA1 expression reminiscent of Gaucher disease, in which PKC involvement has been suggested previously. From these data, we infer that in female mice, PKCα normally serves to prevent endosteal bone formation stimulated by load bearing. This phenotype appears to be suppressed by testicular hormones in male Prkca(-/-) mice. Within osteoblastic cells, PKCα enhances proliferation and suppresses differentiation, and this regulation involves the Wnt pathway. These findings implicate PKCα as a target gene for therapeutic approaches in low bone mass conditions