In this webinar, Dr. Jody Greaney provides an overview of microneurography to measure skin sympathetic nervous system activity, with a focus on data analysis, interpretation and its application coupled with laser Doppler flowmetry.

Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century and will continue to result in more intense, more frequent, and longer lasting extreme heat events, all of which have dire implications for nearly every aspect of human life. Older adults are particularly vulnerable to heat exposure, and excessive heat-related mortality in aged adults can be partly attributed to the cardiovascular consequences of age-related impairments in thermoregulatory reflex function. In a series of studies, Dr. Jody Greaney’s laboratory has used microneurography to directly record skin sympathetic nervous system activity in conscious aged humans during environmental provocations as a means to examine the efferent arc of the thermoregulatory reflex axis.

This presentation will provide a brief overview of the development of the technique of microneurography, with a focus on the unique issues related to its analysis, quantification and interpretation. It will also discuss how this approach, coupled with laser Doppler flowmetry-derived estimates of skin blood flow, has helped to advance our understanding of age-related alterations in thermoregulatory reflex function.

Key Topics Include:

  • Understand the utility of microneurography as a means to measure and quantify skin sympathetic nervous system activity during thermal perturbations in humans
  • Understand the considerations related to the analysis, quantification, and interpretation of microneurographic recordings of skin sympathetic nervous system activity
  • Understand the application of these methodological approaches for assessing sympathetic control of microvascular function during whole-body environmental stressors

Click to watch the webinar recording. To view the presentation full screen simply click the square icon located in the bottom-right corner of the video-viewer.

Resources

To retrieve a PDF copy of the presentation, click on the link below the slide player. From this page, click on the “Download” link to retrieve the file.

Presenters

Assistant Professor
Kinesiology
University of Texas at Arlington

Dr. Jody Greaney earned her doctoral degree at the University of Delaware and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at The Pennsylvania State University, working under the mentorship of Drs. Lacy Alexander and Larry Kenney. In January 2019, Dr. Greaney joined the Department of Kinesiology at The University of Texas at Arlington as an Assistant Professor. Her laboratory is currently investigating the mechanisms and modulators of neurovascular dysfunction in human depression, with the ultimate goal of identifying novel therapeutic intervention strategies to prevent, slow, or reverse depression-associated cardiovascular disease. Dr. Greaney’s research has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the American Heart Association, and she is actively recruiting trainees to join her new laboratory.

Production Partner

ADInstruments

Established in 1988, ADInstruments develops high performance digital data acquisition and analysis solutions for biomedical research and life science education.

Additional Content From ADInstruments

Related Content