ArticleThe Journal of physiology2022
A change of heart: Mechanisms of cardiac adaptation to acute and chronic hypoxia.
Article in The Journal of physiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 44 citations in OpenAlex.
- Change in pulmonary artery pressure upon acute exposure to high altitude: a systematic review and meta-analysis.European respiratory review : an official journal of the European Respiratory Society · 2026Pooled it
- Effects of exercise interventions in hypoxic environment on cardiovascular function and maximal power output in obese or overweight individuals: a systematic review and meta-analysis.BMC cardiovascular disorders · 2025Pooled it
- Pooled it
- Friend or foe: Face masks in patients with COPD at high altitude.Physiological reports · 2026Review
- Human adaptation to high-altitude: A contemporary comparison of the oxygen cascade in Andean, Tibetan and Ethiopian highlanders.Experimental physiology · 2026Review
- Right Ventricular Free Wall Strain in Healthy Lowlanders and Highlanders-A Case-Control Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Rapid-onset respiratory failure following diesel aspiration at 4,200 m: a case report.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- Revealing the adaptive metabolic differences of different sheep breeds in plateau areas based on the Gut-Cardiac axis.BMC genomics · 2025Article
- Global Myocardial Wall Thickness in Transfusion-Dependent Thalassemia: A Cross-Sectional MRI Analysis.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- Alcohol-hypertension association among Chinese Tibetans and potential mechanism: a cross-sectional analysis.BMJ open · 2025Article
- A Single Bout of Intermittent Hypoxia Increases Cerebral Blood Flow and Supports an Executive Function Benefit.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Geographic Variation in Epigenetic Responses to Hypoxia in Deer Mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) Distributed Along an Elevational Gradient.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Effects of a Three-Day vs. Six-Day Exposure to Normobaric Hypoxia on the Cardiopulmonary Function of Rats.Current issues in molecular biology · 2025Article
- Cardiomyocytes in Hypoxia: Cellular Responses and Implications for Cell-Based Cardiac Regenerative Therapies.Bioengineering (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Long-term exposure to high-altitude hypoxic environments reduces blood pressure by inhibiting the renin-angiotensin system in rats.Frontiers in physiology · 2025Article
- Association of attenuated leptin signaling pathways with impaired cardiac function under prolonged high-altitude hypoxia.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- CD73/adenosine axis exerts cardioprotection against hypobaric hypoxia-induced metabolic shift and myocarditis in a sex-dependent manner.Cell communication and signaling : CCS · 2024Article
- Impact of homeostatic body hydration status, evaluated by hemodynamic measures, on different pain sensitization paths to a chronic pain syndrome.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- The impact of high-altitude migration on cardiac structure and function: a 1-year prospective study.Frontiers in physiology · 2024Article
- Protective effects of epigallocatechin-3-gallate counteracting the chronic hypobaric hypoxia-induced myocardial injury in plain-grown rats at high altitude.Cell stress & chaperones · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Over the last 100 years, high-altitude researchers have amassed a comprehensive understanding of the global cardiac responses to acute, prolonged and lifelong hypoxia. When lowlanders are exposed to hypoxia, the drop in arterial oxygen content demands an increase in cardiac output, which is facilitated by an elevated heart rate at the same time as ventricular volumes are maintained. As exposure is prolonged, haemoconcentration restores arterial oxygen content, whereas left ventricular filling and stroke volume are lowered as a result of a combination of reduced blood volume and hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction. Populations native to high-altitude, such as the Sherpa in Asia, exhibit unique lifelong or generational adaptations to hypoxia. For example, they have smaller left ventricular volumes compared to lowlanders despite having larger total blood volume. More recent investigations have begun to explore the mechanisms underlying such adaptive responses by combining novel imaging techniques with interventions that manipulate cardiac preload, afterload, and/or contractility. This work has revealed the contributions and interactions of (i) plasma volume constriction; (ii) sympathoexcitation; and (iii) hypoxic pulmonary vasoconstriction with respect to altering cardiac loading, or otherwise preserving or enhancing biventricular systolic and diastolic function even amongst high altitude natives with excessive erythrocytosis. Despite these advances, various areas of investigation remain understudied, including potential sex-related differences in response to high altitude. Collectively, the available evidence supports the conclusion that the human heart successfully adapts to hypoxia over the short- and long-term, without signs of myocardial dysfunction in healthy humans, except in very rare cases of maladaptation.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.