| Research Topic:
My research
involves investigating the effects of prenatal nicotine exposure on
ventilation and metabolic rate in newborn infants. It has been widely
suggested that smoking during pregnancy is associated with impaired
ventilatory ability, particularly during exposure to stressful
respiratory conditions (eg: asphyxia and hypoxia), and thus is
implicated in increasing the risk of Sudden Infant Death. However, an
important question we are interested in, is what effect prenatal
nicotine exposure may have on metabolic rate and how the already
established effects of nicotine on ventilation may be related to
metabolic rate. This is being examined in genetically unaltered mice
(WT) and mice in which the nicotine acetylcholine receptor subunit
a4
has been removed or knocked out (a4
KO mice) for the purpose of investigating the possible role of this
receptor subunit in mediating the effects of nicotine and hence its
possible role in regulating ventilation and metabolic rate.
As
thermoregulation is very closely associated with metabolic rate our
current experiments involve looking at how exposure to certain high
temperatures at an early age, in the absence and presence of the
a4
subunit, may affect the development of thermoregulation and subsequently
functions associated with thermoregulation, and how nicotine may further
alter this development. We hope to not only establish the physiological
alterations but also molecular and neural alterations such as nicotine
receptor and neurotransmitter distribution and quantification.
Further
questions we hope to pursue are how sleep state may effect ventilation
and metabolism in response to respiratory stress as well as other
important defence mechanisms such as arousal and autoresuscitation.
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