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Cutaneous blood flow and sweat rate responses to exogenous administration of acetylcholine and methacholine

¹Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine, Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas, and ²Department of Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, Dallas, Texas

Submitted 22 September 2006 ; accepted in final form 26 December 2006

The aim of this study was to evaluate cutaneous vasodilation and sweating responses to exogenous administration of acetylcholine (ACh) and methacholine (MCh), which have different sensitivities to endogenous cholinesterase. Four intradermal microdialysis probes were placed in dorsal forearm skin: two sites were perfused with ACh (1 x 10^–7–1 M) and the other two with the same molar concentrations of MCh. Sweat rate (SR) and cutaneous blood flow were simultaneously assessed directly over each microdialysis membrane. Dose-response curves were constructed, and the effective concentration of the drug resulting in 50% of the maximal response (EC₅₀) was identified. For SR and cutaneous vascular conductance (CVC), there were no significant differences in EC₅₀ between sites receiving the same drug: –1.52 ± 0.18 and –1.19 ± 0.09 log-molar concentration of ACh at distal and proximal sites, respectively, and –2.35 ± 0.24 and –2.42 ± 0.23 log-molar concentration of MCh at distal and proximal sites, respectively, for SR (P > 0.05) and –3.87 ± 0.32 and –3.97 ± 0.27 log-molar concentration of ACh at distal and proximal sites, respectively, and –4.78 ± 0.17 and –4.46 ± 0.16 log-molar concentration of MCh at distal and proximal sites, respectively, for CVC (P > 0.05). However, the EC₅₀ for CVC and SR was significantly lower at the MCh than at the ACh sites. A second procedure was performed to confirm that differences in responses between ACh and MCh could be attributed to different cholinesterase sensitivities. Similarly, four microdialysis membranes were placed in dorsal forearm skin: two sites were perfused with ACh and other two with MCh. However, one of each of the ACh and MCh sites was also perfused with 10 µM neostigmine (an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor). Neostigmine at the ACh site induced a leftward shift (i.e., lower EC₅₀) of the SR and CVC dose-response curves compared with the site treated with ACh alone, resulting in no difference in the EC₅₀ for SR and CVC between the ACh + neostigmine and the MCh site. These results suggest that elevations in SR and CVC occur earlier with MCh than with ACh treatment because of differences in cholinesterase susceptibility between these drugs.

thermoregulation; sweating; microdialysis