Respiratory characteristics of kangaroo rat blood

Cerebral blood flow and oxidative metabolism in conscious Fischer-344 rats of different ages

The cerebral metabolic rates for O2 and for glucose were measured in conscious, fasted male Fischer-344 rats at the ages of 3, 12, and 24 months, and cerebral blood flow was determined with 14C-iodoantipyrine. The metabolic rates for oxygen and glucose were obtained by multiplying blood flow by the O2 and glucose concentration differences, respectively, between blood in the femoral artery and in the superior sagittal sinus. Mean cerebral blood flow and the metabolic rates for oxygen and glucose did not differ significantly (p greater than 0.05) between 3 and 12 or between 12 and 24 months. Nor did the arteriovenous differences for O2 and for glucose change significantly with age. Because the superior sagittal sinus drains blood mainly from the cerebral cortex, the results indicate that average cerebral cortical oxidative metabolism, and the coupling ratios between the cerebral metabolic rate for oxygen and cerebral blood flow and between the cerebral metabolic rate for glucose and cerebral blood flow, do not change significantly with age in the Fischer-344 rat.

A model of respiratory heat transfer in a small mammal

A steady-state model of the heat and water transfer occurring in the upper respiratory tract of the kangaroo rat, Dipodomys spectabilis, is developed and tested. The model is described by a steady-state energy balance equation in which the rate of energy transfer from a liquid stream (representing the flow of heat and blood from the body core to the nasal region) is equated with the rate of energy transfer by thermal conduction from the nose tip to the environment. All of the variables in the equation except the flow rate of the liquid stream can be either measured directly or estimated from physiological measurements, permitting the solution of the equation for the liquid stream flow rate. After solving for the liquid stream flow rate by using data from three animals, the energy balance equation is used to compute values of energy transfer, expired air temperature, rates of water loss, and efficiency of vapor recovery for a variety of ambient conditions. These computed values are compared with values measured or estimated from physiological measurements on the same three animals, and the equation is thus shown to be internally consistent. To evaluate the model's predictive value, calculated expired air temperatures are compared with measured expired air temperatures of eight additional animals. Finally, the model is used to examine the general dependence of expired air temperature, of rates of water loss, and of efficiency of vapor recovery on ambient conditions.

The neglected interface: the biology of water as a liquid-gas system

Water, solutes and membranes have long been the subject of intensive research, and many excellent reviews have brought the major biological problems in focus, have discussed accomplishments, and have outlined unsolved problems. The most interesting results pertain to the role of membranes, whether ‘active’ or ‘passive’, which separate different solutions, in other words, membranes at a water–water inerface Liquid gas interfaces have receied less attention, and I therefore wish to review some biological problem which relate to such systems. I shall discuss a variety of phenomena which may have little in common, except that they all bear onthe transition of water between liquid and gas.