The signal in total-body plethysmography: errors due to adiabatic-isothermic difference

Total-body plethysmography is a technique often employed in comparative physiology studies because it avoids excessive handling of the animals. The pressure signal obtained is generated by an increase in internal energy of the gas phase of the system. Currently, this increase in internal energy is ascribed to heating (and water vapour saturation) of the inspired gas. The standard equation for computing tidal-volume implies that only temperature and saturation differences can be responsible for generating the ventilation signal. In this study, we were able to demonstrate that the difference between the external process of the thoracic expansion, which is adiabatic, and the internal process of it, which is isothermic, is an important factor of internal energy change in the total-body plethysmography method. In other words, organic tissues transfer heat to the entering gas but also to the present gas, in a way that keeps internal expansion an isothermic process. This extra amount of energy was never taken into account before. Therefore, experiments using such a technique to measure tidal-volume should be done using isothermic chambers. Moreover, due to uncertainties of the complementary measurements (ambient and lung temperatures, ambient water vapour saturation) needed to compute tidal-volume using total-body plethysmography, a minimal temperature difference about 15 degrees C between body and ambient should exist to keep uncertainties in tidal-volume values below 5%. However, this limit is not absolute, because it varies as a function of humidity and degree of uncertainty of the complementary measurements.