人妻中出视频 Health PhD candidate Baonhu Tran studies how nose shape and size affect human body heat across different climates, using climate chamber testing and CT scans
As the summer heat sets in, you might be more keenly aware of your body鈥檚 ability to regulate its temperature. Typically, your skin gets all the credit for keeping you cool through processes like sweating or vasodilation. But there鈥檚 another part of your body that might play a larger role in regulating temperatures 鈥� your nose.
Baonhu Tran, a PhD candidate at Fort Worth鈥檚 , has focused her dissertation research on the topic, specifically how the size and shape of your nose might play an important role in how your brain and body regulate heat.
鈥淗istorically, a lot of research into human thermoregulation has focused on the role of the skin and not much has focused on the respiratory system, especially the nose,鈥� Tran said.
鈥淏ecause we are constantly breathing out warm air, the respiratory system may contribute more to thermoregulation in certain environments than previously thought. My goal is to revisit this question and see whether the respiratory system plays a larger role in some climates and a smaller role in others.鈥�
The project is being conducted in two phases. First, Tran and the research team are looking at the role of the respiratory system in whole body thermoregulation.
鈥淭he literature suggests that the respiratory system contributes only about ten percent of total heat loss, while the skin accounts for the majority of heat exchange with the environment. However, lot of those experimentshave been conducted under room temperature conditions,鈥� Tran said. 鈥淚f we factor in different climates, temperatures and humidities, the respiratory system may play a more important role in temperature regulation than previously assumed.鈥�
To gather data, Tran is using some high-tech tools including the climate chamber at 人妻中出视频 Health鈥檚 . Research subjects spend time in chamber set to replicate the climates of the Sahara desert, the Arctic tundra and the Amazon rainforest to test how the body regulates heat in those conditions. Through a partnership with JPS Health Network, the team conducts CT scans on each research participant. For her dissertation project, Tran is using the CT scans to get accurate measures of their nasal passages.
鈥淭aller, narrower noses tend to be better at heating and humidifying inspired air because there is increased nasal mucosa surface area in the nasal passages. This allows for better transfer of heat and moisture to help warm and humidify that air upon contact with the nasal mucosa,鈥� Tran said.
However, Tran says that shorter and wider noses may help the body shed heat in hot, humid tropical climates.
鈥淚f we think about the climate there, the air is already pretty hot with more moisture, so there is not as much of a need to transfer heat and moisture to that air during inspiration. However, during exhalation, hot air is always breathed out. This may help with body temperature regulation in those conditions,鈥� Train said.
She鈥檚 using some low-tech approaches as well, like a 1993 HVAC engineering handbook she bought on eBay. While preparing for her project, she found the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Handbook was full of industry-standard mathematical models that help calculate things like respiratory heat loss and body temperature regulation.
鈥淚'm essentially putting the variables we鈥檝e collected into established equations to calculate how much the respiratory system is contributing to overall body temperature regulation for each participant during their exposures in the climate chamber,鈥� Tran said.
鈥淚 didn't realize I would be doing this much math when I started my PhD, but it鈥檚 been fun.鈥�
The second phase of the project will explore the role of the nose in brain thermoregulation, an area of research that hasn鈥檛 previously gotten much attention. In that study, the team will use microwave radiometry, a non-invasive way to detect thermal radiation to accurately measure brain temperatures with the goal of determining how the respiratory system might play a role in regulating brain temperature in different climates.
Tran, who took an interest in researching nasal passages while she was an undergraduate
intern at 人妻中出视频 Health鈥檚 Summer Opportunities in Anatomy Research program, is getting
some major support for her work. She earned grants to fund her research from the (NSF), the and the . Additionally, Tran was accepted to the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program,
which supports outstanding graduate students who demonstrate the potential to make
significant contributions in STEM. Tran is the first 人妻中出视频 Health student to be accepted
to the fellowship program.
鈥淭he fact that Baonhu鈥檚 research was funded by all three of the major anthropological funding agencies speaks to the originality and importance of her research project,鈥� said Dr. Scott Maddux, Tran鈥檚 research mentorand interim director of the Center for Anatomical Sciences at 人妻中出视频 Health.
鈥淗er NSF review panel probably summarized it best: 鈥楾he panel was impressed by the high likelihood of the proposal to provide new foundational (textbook) knowledge of how human thermoregulation works.鈥欌��
On top of answering long-standing questions about the role of the respiratory system and body temperature regulation, Tran鈥檚 findings could also have real-world impacts in areas such as athletic performance, occupational hazards and public health.
鈥淲ith climate change happening now and into the future, if we have a better understanding of thermoregulation in different climates and how the nose contributes to it, then we can provide better insight into how to keep people healthy and comfortable,鈥� Tran said.
This material is based on work supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation under awards No. 2444956 and 2521817. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. National Science Foundation.
From - Student News