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A century of exercise physiology: concepts that ignited the study of human thermoregulation. Part 1: Foundational principles and theories of regulation

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Abstract

This contribution is the first of a four-part, historical series encompassing foundational principles, mechanistic hypotheses and supported facts concerning human thermoregulation during athletic and occupational pursuits, as understood 100 years ago and now. Herein, the emphasis is upon the physical and physiological principles underlying thermoregulation, the goal of which is thermal homeostasis (homeothermy). As one of many homeostatic processes affected by exercise, thermoregulation shares, and competes for, physiological resources. The impact of that sharing is revealed through the physiological measurements that we take (Part 2), in the physiological responses to the thermal stresses to which we are exposed (Part 3) and in the adaptations that increase our tolerance to those stresses (Part 4). Exercising muscles impose our most-powerful heat stress, and the physiological avenues for redistributing heat, and for balancing heat exchange with the environment, must adhere to the laws of physics. The first principles of internal and external heat exchange were established before 1900, yet their full significance is not always recognised. Those physiological processes are governed by a thermoregulatory centre, which employs feedback and feedforward control, and which functions as far more than a thermostat with a set-point, as once was thought. The hypothalamus, today established firmly as the neural seat of thermoregulation, does not regulate deep-body temperature alone, but an integrated temperature to which thermoreceptors from all over the body contribute, including the skin and probably the muscles. No work factor needs to be invoked to explain how body temperature is stabilised during exercise.

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Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=101534333 Accessed: July 22nd, 2022

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Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1527228 Accessed: July 22nd, 2021

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Source: https://en.geneanet.org/media/public/screenshot-2020-03-05-pierre-frederic-sarrus-20144788. Portrait of Jean-François Rameaux is in the Public Domain. Accessed: December 22nd, 2022

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Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hermann_von_Helmholtz.jpg Accessed: December 22nd, 2022

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Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Joseph_Black_b1728.jpg Accessed: December 22nd, 2022

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Modified from Mitchell et al. (2018)

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Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Claude_Bernard.jpg Accessed: December 22nd, 2022

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Modified from concepts shown in Mitchell et al. (1972)

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Data availability

Supplementary data are not provided as this is a review manuscript and not an experimental paper.

Abbreviations

C:

Rate of convective heat flux

D:

Diameter

E:

Rate of evaporative heat flux

IL-1:

Interleukin-1

IL-6:

Interleukin-6

K:

Rate of conductive heat flux

M:

Metabolic rate

m:

Body mass

R:

Rate of radiant heat flux

S:

Rate of heat storage in the body

TNF:

Tumour necrosis factor

W:

External work rate

v :

Wind speed

\({\dot{\text{V}}}_{{{\text{O}}_{{2}} }}\) :

Oxygen consumption

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Acknowledgements

The authors dedicate this contribution to Eugene H. Wissler (1927-2018) and to Christopher J. Gordon (1953-2021; Taylor and Pörtner, 2021). SRN was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Human and Environmental Physiology Research Unit, University of Ottawa (Canada), during the developmental stages of this work. The authors acknowledge contributions from Andrea Fuller and Shane K. Maloney, and the libraries of the University of Western Australia and the University of the Witwatersrand during the writing of this manuscript. Finally, and by no means least, we acknowledge the many and varied, but always significant, contributions of our friends in science (also known as students and colleagues).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Defence Science and Technology Group, Department of Defence, Melbourne, Australia

    Sean R. Notley

  2. Brain Function Research Group, School of Physiology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Duncan Mitchell

  3. School of Human Sciences, University of Western Australia, Crawley, Australia

    Duncan Mitchell

  4. Research Institute of Human Ecology, College of Human Ecology, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea

    Nigel A. S. Taylor

  5. School of Human Kinetics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Canada

    Sean R. Notley

Authors
  1. Sean R. Notley
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  2. Duncan Mitchell
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  3. Nigel A. S. Taylor
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Contributions

SRN, DM and NAST developed and planned this review, and took part in all phases of manuscript preparation. Each author was responsible for writing specific sub-sections, and for editing all parts of this work. All authors approved the final submission of this manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Nigel A. S. Taylor.

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Communicated by Michael I Lindinger.

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Notley, S.R., Mitchell, D. & Taylor, N.A.S. A century of exercise physiology: concepts that ignited the study of human thermoregulation. Part 1: Foundational principles and theories of regulation. Eur J Appl Physiol 123, 2379–2459 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-023-05272-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-023-05272-7

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