Mike Collis
Editor

https://doi.org/10.36866/pn.93.5

The cover of this eclectic issue of Physiology News features a picture of Tom Bourdillon, on the Everest expedition of 1953. Without the application of physiological principles (particularly relating to oxygen, dietary and fluid requirements) to the rigours of high altitude climbing, the mountain would not have been conquered. Physiology has an obvious relevance to human physical performance, not only under extreme conditions but also in understanding and quantifying the effects of exercise in normal circumstances.

Two articles in this PN focus on exercise. Anton Wagenmakers and Matthew Cocks review the effects of exercise (both prolonged and short intense periods) on the function of endothelial cells. The multiple benefits include anti-atherosclerotic and anti-thrombotic effects, improved vasodilation and angiogenesis. Perhaps we are as healthy or unhealthy as our endothelial cells. It is certain that those suffering from the current epidemic of obesity, diabetes and metabolic syndrome have important impairments in endothelial function (those with metabolic syndrome also show disorders of sympathetic vascular control, see Limberg, Morgan and Schrage on page 36). Dylan Thompson makes the important point in the second article on exercise that we may be missing important information on the effects of exercise regimens by ignoring the normal physical activity levels of control subjects, which may vary markedly. Exercise isn’t just about going to the gym!

PN tries to bring its readers updates on important techniques and in this issue we have two contributions on optogenetics. Gero Miesenböck talks to PN about the initial ideas that led to the development of these techniques and their future potential “inverting the direction of optical communication with the brain”. A further article provides a review of the status of the technology in 2013 and points to some future developments and improvements that are required.

How we assess creativity and scientific quality is a continuing debate (see David Miller’s update on the evils of Impact Factors on page 12). There is always the temptation to use simple metrics such as the number of times a particular research paper is cited over a defined time period. We all agree that this is a totally inadequate measure of scientific quality. In one’s own field of research, one knows who is making a very important contribution and who are ‘also rans’, but how can this be quantified? Could an expert peer review system be applied assessing a scientist’s performance? I doubt that even this would work as the most significant advances are nearly always not initially recognised by most of us as important. I remember a poster at a 1976 vascular meeting in Belgium where Bob Furchgott showed that arterial strips in vitro contracted to acetylcholine whereas rings of the same artery relaxed! Why should anyone be interested in such a perverse observation? However, it was the basis of the discovery of endothelial derived relaxant factors that are some of the hottest areas in physiology and pharmacology today and, some 22 years later, brought a Nobel Prize for Furchgott. Who could have predicted that?