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Associative conditioning with leg cycling and inspiratory resistance enhances the early exercise ventilatory response in humans

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Abstract

Repeated trials of hypercapnic exercise [ΔPETCO2=7 (1) mmHg] augment the increase in inspired minute ventilation and tidal volume (VT) in the early phase of subsequent trials of unencumbered exercise alone. The increase in VT in the first 20 s of exercise was correlated to the increase in VT evoked during hypercapnic exercise trials, suggesting that the evoked increase in VT during conditioning may be a factor in mediating associative conditioning. To test this hypothesis, inspiratory resistive loading (IRL) was employed to evoke an increase in VT [ΔVT=0.4 (0.1) lBTPS] during conditioning exercise trials [IRL+EX; ΔPETCO2=2 (1) mmHg]. IRL+EX associative conditioning elicited a significant augmentation of the early minute ventilation (+46%) and VT (+100%) responses to subsequent unencumbered exercise. The latter was correlated to the evoked increase in VT during associative conditioning with IRL+EX. The results support the hypothesis that an evoked increase in VT during associative conditioning could be a factor in eliciting long-term modulation of minute ventilation in subsequent unencumbered exercise. The results further indicated that the modulation of ventilation early in exercise is not due to sensitisation to repeated trials of either IRL or exercise alone. Associative conditioning may shape the ventilatory response to exercise through a process of motor learning. Data are presented as mean (SEM) unless otherwise stated.

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Acknowledgements

The Wellcome Trust (052854) and Nuffield Foundation (97/0343) funded this project.

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  1. School of Life and Sport Sciences, University of Surrey Roehampton, London, SW15 3SN, UK

    Duncan L. Turner & Jamie D. Stewart

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  1. Duncan L. Turner
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  2. Jamie D. Stewart
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Correspondence to Duncan L. Turner.

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Turner, D.L., Stewart, J.D. Associative conditioning with leg cycling and inspiratory resistance enhances the early exercise ventilatory response in humans. Eur J Appl Physiol 93, 333–339 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-004-1194-2

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