Circulation and metabolic rates in a natural hibernator: an integrative physiological model.

ABSTRACT: Small hibernating mammals show regular oscillations in their heart rate and body temperature throughout the winter. Long periods of torpor are abruptly interrupted by arousals with heart rates that rapidly increase from 5 beats/min to over 400 beats/min and body temperatures that increase by ∼30°C only to drop back into the hypothermic torpid state within hours. Surgically implanted transmitters were used to obtain high-resolution electrocardiogram and body temperature data from hibernating thirteen-lined ground squirrels (Spermophilus tridecemlineatus). These data were used to construct a model of the circulatory system to gain greater understanding of these rapid and extreme changes in physiology. Our model provides estimates of metabolic rates during the torpor-arousal cycles in differe

SUBMITTER: Hampton M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3008751 | biostudies-literature | 2010 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature