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Hughson, Richard L.

Richard Hughson

Richard Hughson
  • Professor and Graduate Associate Dean
  • BSc (Western Ontario), MSc (British Columbia), PhD (McMaster)

Contact:

  • Office: BMH 3116
  • Telephone: 519-888-4567, ext. 32516
  • e-mail: hughson@uwaterloo.ca
  • FAX: 519-885-0470

Research

Visit the Cardiorespiratory and Vascular Dynamics Laboratory.

Our research program focuses on control mechanisms involved in regulation of cardiovascular and respiratory responses during transitions from rest to exercise or from supine to upright posture. We combine sophisticated breath-by-breath measurements to determine whole body ventilation, oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide output along with state of the art accurate non-invasive measurements of cardiac output and muscle blood flow to understand how the body adapts to exercise. We have recently measured oxygen uptake directly across working arm (Hughson, 1996) and leg (MacDonald, 2000) muscles. Our 1996 paper, along with two other recent papers, are among the most frequently cited papers published within the prestigious Journal of Applied Physiology (check their web site http://jap.physiology.org/). Our recent invited review paper (Tschakovsky, 1999) provides a summary of key factors related to the integration of cardiovascular function and muscle metabolism at the onset of exercise. Another important component of our research involves studies of regulation of arterial blood pressure and brain blood flow during transitions to upright posture. This research has applications to studies of patients who experience dizziness as well as to astronauts returning from travel to the International Space Station. We are currently preparing projects that we hope will study astronauts living on ISS. Graduate students gain experience in a wide range of techniques and applications. Top quality publications result from their work. From 1996-1999, 3 of the 4 winners of the Canadian Society for Exercise Physiology Young Investigator Award did their work in our lab.

Dr. Hughson was the recipient of the University of Waterloo Distinguished Researcher Award in 2001.

Key Publications:

  1. Tschakovsky, M.E., and R.L. Hughson. Interaction of factors determining oxygen uptake at the onset of exercise (Invited Review). J. Appl. Physiol. 86: 1101-1113, 1999.
  2. MacDonald,M.J., Naylor,H.L., Tschakovsky,M.E., and Hughson,R.L. Evidence that peripheral circulatory factors limit the rate of increase in muscle O2 uptake at the onset of heavy exercise. J. Appl. Physiol. 90: 83-89, 2001.
  3. Perrey, S., Tschakovsky, M.E., and Hughson, R.L. Ischemic muscle chemoreflex elevates muscle blood flow and oxygen uptake during onset of exercise in nonischemic human forearm. J. Appl. Physiol. 91: 2010-2016, 2001.
  4. Hughson, R.L., Edwards, M.R., O'Leary, D.D., and Shoemaker, J.K. Critical analysis of cerebrovascular autoregulation during repeated head up tilt. Stroke 32: 2403-2408, 2001.
  5. Tordi, N. Perrey, S., Harvey, A. and Hughson, R.L.. Oxygen uptake kinetics during two bouts of heavy cycling separated by fatiguing sprint exercise in humans. J Appl Physiol 94:534-541, 2003.
  6. Edwards, M.R., Z.L. Topor and R.L. Hughson. A new two-breath technique for extracting the cerebrovascular response to arterial carbon dioxide. Am.J.Physiol.Regul.Integr.Comp. Physiol. 284: R853-R859, 2003.
  7. Hughson, R.L. Regulation of blood flow at the onset of exercise by feed forward and feedback mechanisms. Can. J. Appl. Physiol. 28(5), 2003.