Respiratory and Cardiovascular Responses of the Exercising Chicken to Spinal Cord Cooling at Different Ambient Temperatures: I. Cardiovascular Responses and Blood Gases

We measured oxygen consumption (VO2), heart rate (HR), stroke volume (SV), cardiac output (CO) and mean arterial blood pressure (MBPa) of chickens during 15 min treadmill exercise at 0.5 ms-1 and 0.8 ms-1 at thermoneutral (23 degrees C), low (9 degrees C) and high (34 degrees C) ambient temperature (Ta); the vertebral canal was cooled to 34 degrees C during the middle 5 min of each exercise period. PO2, PCO2, pH and oxygen content (CO2) of the arterial and mixed venous blood were also measured. VO2 during exercise was not significantly affected by Ta. Spinal cord cooling produced definite increases in VO2, CO and SV during 0.5 ms-1 exercise at 9 degrees C; otherwise, effects of spinal cord cooling were not significant. HR, SV and CO were all linearly related to VO2; these relationships were unaffected by spinal cord cooling or Ta. Blood pressure did not increase during exercise. PaCO2 and P-vCO2 did not increase significantly during exercise. The arterial-venous CO2 difference was increased by exercise only at 34 degrees C. The chickens generally hyperventilated at 34 degrees C Ta compared to the other Ta values. No consistent effect on blood gases or on pH and CO2 of the blood could be attributed to spinal cord cooling.