Marvin Bernstein
Title: Professor
Research area: Comparative Animal Physiology
Office location: FH 310
Laboratory Location: FH
303/312
Email Address: mbernste@nmsu.edu
Office Phone: 575-646-3823
Lab Webpage: ---
Education:
- Post-doctoral work: Duke University
- PhD: University of California, Los Angeles
Research Interests:
Oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) is a frequent fact of life for many
animals, such as those that live at or visit high altitudes. Some
champion bird species fly at altitudes where the oxygen supply is only
one-fourth as high as at sea level and where daytime temperatures are
often 50 degrees below freezing. The enormous oxygen requirement
for flight (20 to 40 times higher than for resting) makes the feats of
high-flying birds even more remarkable. For comparison, mammals
including humans come down with mountain sickness at much lower
altitudes, especially if they try to exercise. To understand
physiological adaptations for flight and high-altitude tolerance in
birds, my students and I study temperature regulation, energetics,
cardiac and respiratory mechanics, oxygen and carbon-dioxide transport,
and body-fluid volume regulation. We also investigate adaptations
to hypoxia at the tissue and cell levels, especially in skeletal
muscle, eye, and brain. For example, we have recently discovered
a mechanism for supplementing the oxygen supply to the brain and retina
of birds exposed to hypoxia. As part of an experiment on tissue
hypoxia, we have found that the body tissues store huge quantities of
body fluids, and birds therefore never suffer from shock. We do
experiments on animals at rest, during flight in a wind tunnel, or
during exposure to cold and artificial high altitude. To
investigate why mammals do not tolerate hypoxia as well as birds, we
also study the effects of hypoxia on the brains of rats, using changes
in learning ability and memory, as well as histological and biochemical
changes, as indicators. The long-term goal is to understand both
the mechanism and the evolution of hypoxia tolerance. I welcome
opportunities to work with students interested in animal adaptations to
environmental stresses at the systems, tissue, and cell levels.
Selected Publications:
- Bernstein, M.H. (1991). Respiration in birds at high
altitude. In: S. Lahiri and N.S. Cherniack (eds.), Response
and Adaptation to Hypoxia: Organ to Organelle, Oxford, University
Press, New York, Chapter 22.
- Carmi, N., B. Pinshow, M. Horowitz, and M. H. Bernstein (1993)
Birds conserve plasma volume during thermal and flight incurred
dehydration. Physiological Zoology 66:829-846.
- Mathieu-Costello, O., P. J. Agey, R. B. Logeman, M.
Florez-Duquet, and M. H. Bernstein (1994) Effect of flying activity on
capillary-fiber geometry in pigeon flight muscle. Tissue and Cell
26:57-73.
- Furilla, R. A. and M. H. Bernstein (1995) Intrapulmonary CO2-rise
time and ventilation in ducks. Journal of Applied Physiology.
- Maginniss, L. A., M. H. Bernstein, M. A. Deitch, and B. Pinshow (1997) Effects of chronic hypobaric hypoxia on blood oxygen binding in pigeons. Journal of Experimental Zoology 277:293-300.