Individual Differences in Regional Sweating

¹ From the Department of Physiology, St. Louis University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri

Total sweating rates and those on 20 different loci on chest, abdomen, thigh, calf and dorsum of the foot of five subjects were measured after they had come into approximate thermal equilibrium with various chamber temperatures of from 35° to 48°C. The topographic distribution of the sweating response was characteristically different in each subject, although total sweating rates and mean body temperatures of four of these subjects were essentially alike at each temperature. Individual differences in regional sweating patterns were shown also during rising temperature as well as during induced brief cycles in the latter. Sweating patterns were not related specifically to either skin or oral temperatures but rather to total sweat output irrespective of how the latter was induced. Certain consistent trends appeared in sweating responses of all five subjects: the skin of chest and abdomen along a zone just lateral to the mid-sternal line sweated more than the more lateral zones, the rates decreasing progressively as the measurements were made laterally, with the lowest rates being observed along the axillary line; anterior and lateral aspects of the thigh and all loci on the calf usually sweated more than the rate of weight loss; the medial aspect of the thigh consistently showed relatively low sweating rates; the lower extremity tended to dominate sweating at lower temperatures but sweating on the trunk increased more rapidly than that on calf and thigh at higher temperatures so that the ratio of regional sweating to total sweating tended to approach unity at 45°C. This effect varied considerably among individuals. These topographic patterns in sweating are thought to be due to facilitation of spinal sudomotor neurones by unknown mechanisms rather than individual anatomical differences in sudomotor outflows and in distribution of sweat glands in the skin.

Note:
with the technical assistance of J. T. DeWitte, G. A. Hagen, R. W. Hellweg, D. R. Lucy, C. J. Sands and T. F. Shields.

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