dc.description.abstracten | Telemetric systems, including wearable, implantable, and consumable sensors, allow extensive
health-related monitoring not yet available in all conditions to which humans are exposed.
An important goal in the sustainability of the individual’s proper health and
performance in both dry and wet extreme environments is the ability to directly access
key physiological and vital data, such as heart and breathing rates, body temperature, and
stress-related components in blood, urine, and saliva, in real time.
During breath-hold diving (BHD), for example, the arterial partial pressure of oxygen and
carbon dioxide is believed to progressively increase during descent, as explained by theory and
previous end-tidal alveolar gas measurements and arterial blood gas (ABG) analysis in hyperbaric
chambers. Recent ABG experiments in real underwater environments found a paradoxical drop
at depth in some divers. This confirms that some BHDdivers can experience hypoxemia at depth.
The hypothesized explanation for such a discrepancy is lung atelectasis, as suggested by lung
ultrasound findings performed at depth.
Divers encounter inert gas narcosis (IGN) at depth, exhibiting a marked loss in circulating
dopamine levels, likely accounting for brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF)-dependent
impairment of mental capacity and heightened oxidative stress indicators in blood and saliva. The
decline in dopamine and BDNF levels appears to persist at decompression under dry conditions;
thus, boosting dopamine/BDNF signaling via pharmacological or other intervention types might
attenuate IGN in deep dives (Balestra et al., 2012; Lafere et al., 2016; Rocco et al., 2019; Bosco
et al., 2023). | en_US |