2007, Piran, Slovenia

Environmental Ergonomics XII
Igor B. Mekjavic, Stelios N. Kounalakis & Nigel A.S. Taylor (Eds.), © BIOMED, Ljubljana 2007
BODY TEMPERATURE DOES NOT INFLUENCE NEURAL CONTROL
IN A CYCLICAL LOAD-LIFTING TASK IN THE COLD
Stephen S. Cheung, Luke F. Reynolds, Constance L. Tweedie, Robin L. Gillingham,
David A. Westwood
Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada
Contact person: stephen.cheung@brocku.ca
INTRODUCTION
During exposure of the hands to cold, gross and fine manual dexterity is rapidly impaired.
These changes may result from peripheral vasoconstriction and concomitant reductions in
blood flow, increases in joint viscosity, and/or decreases in muscle/nerve conduction that
occur upon cold exposure. Indeed, changes in body heat content may actually be a better
predictor of hand function than finger temperature during cold exposure, as hand function,
including hand grip strength and finger tapping performance, was maintained during cold
exposure when body heat content was increased both before and throughout exposure via a
liquid conditioning garment. Accordingly, one potentially important factor in the neural
control of grip force with cold hands is core temperature. Pre-warming the body may
influence grip control when manipulating objects with cold hands. However, studies to date
have not explored the co-ordination between grip and load force in object manipulation tasks
under core temperature alterations.
The primary objective of this study was to determine if mild (0.5ºC) increases and decreases
in core temperature modulate the effects of hand cooling (