Ice cooling challenge as a means to probe skin microvascular function
Authors: Monteiro Rodrigues Luis , Andrade Sergio , Rocha Clemente , Gonçalves Joana , Ferreira Hugo 
Published: May 2024

Skin microvasculature provides a window to study both systemic and local physiology. In vascular medicine, various challengers such reactive hyperemia, hypoxia or hyperoxia, and heat, have been used to study function and search for potential clinical biomarkers. A positive relationship between increased skin temperature and skin perfusion has been suggested, but skin cooling as a challenger has not been well explored. In the present study, the adaptive cardiovascular and hemodynamic impacts of single hand cooling were examined in a group of ten healthy women, 27.3±7.9 years old, of normal body mass index and ankle-brachial index, normotensive, non-smoking, and free from any medication and supplements. The study followed all principles of good clinical practice and ethics commission approval. After complete stabilization, a participant’s palm, randomly chosen, was placed in contact with a frozen surface covered by a plasticized cotton cloth. Blood perfusion was measured using a laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) instrument, and temperature were continuously registered in both hands, before, during, and after (early and late recovery) the ice cooling challenge. Nominal values for blood perfusion and temperature were considered, as well as their wavelet transform (WT) components, translating endothelial [0.0095; 0.021] Hz, autonomic [0.021; 0.052] Hz, myogenic [0.052; 0.015] Hz, respiratory [0.15; 0.6] Hz, and cardiac [0.6; 2] Hz activities. No significant differences were observed between limbs regarding nominal LDF values for each experimental phase. Nonetheless, significant differences were observed for nominal temperature signals between limbs during the challenge (Wilcoxon’s signed rank test; p=0.047), and for early (p=0.028) and late (p=0.028) recovery phases. Significant differences were observed for ipsi- and contralateral LDF signals (Friedmann’s test, p<0.001, and p=0.012, respectively), and also for ipsi- and contralateral temperature signals (Friedmann’s test, p<0.001, and p=0.004, respectively). These contralateral responses have been previously described with other challengers applied only in the ipsilateral limb, whilst it is known that local cooling stimulates cutaneous thermoreceptors, sympathetic nerve activity and cutaneous vascular resistance. However, our findings also show that temperature may be more sensitive than LDF for studying the ice cooling challenge, and that the WT analysis approach can provide potential physiological interpretations. Nonetheless, a strong positive correlation (Spearman’s rs = 0.820, p<0.001) was observed between temperature and LDF signals overall for both limbs. In conclusion, this preliminary study suggests that this cooling challenger is effective to elicit vascular physiological changes in both limbs, indicating a putative centrally-mediated adaptive process that might be quantified by changes in cardiac and respiratory activities, as shown from WT analysis. Additionally, temperature signals and the use of WT analysis seem to provide more sensitive and explanatory insights than the use of LDF signals and nominal values alone.

Suported by COFAC/ALIES.

This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.