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Download fileSalivary alpha amylase not chromogranin A reflects sympathetic activity: exercise responses in elite male wheelchair athletes with or without cervical spinal cord injury
journal contribution
posted on 2017-01-06, 11:33 authored by Christof LeichtChristof Leicht, Thomas A.W. Paulson, Vicky Goosey-TolfreyVicky Goosey-Tolfrey, Nicolette BishopNicolette BishopBackground: Salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) and chromogranin A (sCgA) have both
been suggested as non-invasive markers for sympathetic nervous system (SNS)
activity. A complete cervical spinal cord injury leading to tetraplegia is accompanied
with sympathetic dysfunction; the aim of this study was to establish the exercise
response of these markers in this in vivo model.
Methods: Twenty-six elite male wheelchair athletes (C6-C7 tetraplegia: N=8, T6-L1
paraplegia: N=10 and non spinal cord injured controls: N=8) performed treadmill
exercise to exhaustion. Saliva and blood samples were taken pre, post, and 30 min
post exercise and analysed for sAA, sCgA and plasma adrenaline concentration,
respectively.
Results: In all three subgroups, sAA and sCgA were elevated post exercise (P<0.05).
Whilst sCgA was not different between subgroups, a group x time interaction for sAA
explained the reduced post exercise sAA activity in tetraplegia (162±127 vs 313±99
(paraplegia) and 328±131 U∙mL-1 (controls), P=0.005). The post exercise increase in
adrenaline was not apparent in tetraplegia (P=0.74). A significant correlation was found
between adrenaline and sAA (r=0.60, P=0.01), but not between adrenaline and sCgA
(r=0.06, P=0.79).
Conclusions: The blunted post-exercise rise in sAA and adrenaline in tetraplegia
implies that both reflect SNS activity to some degree. It is questionable whether sCgA
should be used as a marker for SNS activity, both due to the exercise response which
is not different between the subgroups and its non-significant relationship with
adrenaline.
Funding
This work was funded by the Peter Harrison Centre for Disability Sport.
History
School
- Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences
Published in
Sports Medicine - OpenCitation
LEICHT, C.A., 2017. Salivary alpha amylase not chromogranin A reflects sympathetic activity: exercise responses in elite male wheelchair athletes with or without cervical spinal cord injury. Sports Medicine, 3, article 1, DOI: 10.1186/s40798-016-0068-6Publisher
Springer © The AuthorsVersion
- NA (Not Applicable or Unknown)
Publisher statement
This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Acceptance date
2016-12-07Publication date
2017Notes
This is an Open Access article it is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.ISSN
0112-1642eISSN
1179-2035Publisher version
Language
- en