CIVD-Related Factors and Finger SkBF

We focused on two SkBF signals, eNO-independent and neurogenic activities, as these factors can largely affect the finger SkBF response during local cold exposure [9 (link)]. Based on the results in our finger cold-water immersion experiment, we categorized the physiological responses of the study subjects in the following manner. First, the subjects were divided into two groups with either the presence or absence of a CIVD response. Second, the subjects were assigned to two additional groups in which they showed either higher or lower amplitudes of each SkBF signal (i.e., eNO-independent and neurogenic activities) at phase 2 compared with the respective mean wavelet amplitudes in individuals who did not show an apparent CIVD response. Consequently, we generated a binary dataset of three categorical variables: (i) the presence or absence of a CIVD response and higher-than-average or lower-than-average wavelet amplitudes of (ii) eNO-independent and (iii) neurogenic activities. Using the dataset, we constructed a network of the three CIVD-related categorical variables using the median-joining method [21 (link)] via NETWORK 10.1.0.0 (https://www.fluxus-engineering.com; Fluxus Technology Ltd., Colchester, England).