The responsiveness of the smallest blood vessels of the human skin was measured in systemic anoxemia, hypercapnia, acidosis, and alkalosis. A method was used which measured quantitatively the reactive hyperemia produced by a standardized period of local ischemia of these fine vessels. By timing the clearing period of the threshold hyperemia response a direct indication of blood flow in these fi...

Because the current assessment of scleroderma skin through clinical skin scoring is subjective and imprecise, we investigated fully quantitative, physical measures of cutaneous involvement in the disease. First, we developed image analysis software for calculating the dermal density of colla-gen from 58 scleroderma and 327 control biopsies scanned onto our computer. Second, using a durometer ga...

Tetra-carboxy-methyl-naringenin-chalcone (TCM-NC) is a new cosmetic active derived from naringenin, a flavanone naturally occurring in the peel of citrus fruit and tomato skin. The naringenin isomer naringenin-chalcone has been reported to have potent anti-allergic properties. For this reason the effect of TCM-NC was studied in an in vitro assay mimicking the inflammation pathway of rosacea ski...

Laser Doppler flowmetry (LDF) is commonly used in combination with reactivity tests to noninvasively evaluate skin sympathetic nerve activity and skin microvascular function. In manual medicine research, LDF has been used as a marker for global peripheral sympathetic nervous system function, but these results should be considered with caution because skin sympathetic nerve activity physiology i...

The technique of wavelet phase coherence analysis is introduced and used to explore relationships between oscillations on blood flow and temperature in the skin of 10 healthy subjects. Their skin temperature and blood flow were continuously recorded: under basal conditions for 30 minutes; during local cooling of the skin with an ice-pack for 20 minutes: and 30 minutes thereafter. The group mean...