Mountains of discovery: Linking vascular health and brain function
Wesley Lefferts ’11 is a vascular exercise physiologist, assistant professor of kinesiology, and a principal
investigator in the Clinical Vascular Research Lab at Iowa State University. His research examines the growing links between vascular
and brain health and how exercise can improve the health of our arteries and, in turn,
our brains.
Lefferts is also interested in how extreme environmental conditions such as heat stress,
as well as high altitude, affect cardiovascular and brain function. Recently, Lefferts
completed his second research expedition to Mount Everest Base Camp, where his group
looked at how altitude impacts blood flow to the brain.
The ongoing research collaboration includes Tisch Distinguished Professor of Health
and Human Physiological Sciences Denise Smith, Lefferts’ longtime mentor and director
of Skidmore’s First Responder Health and Safety Laboratory.
“Denise is an expert in heart function, so we teamed up with her and borrowed her
portable ultrasound to measure heart function in the field at 14,000 feet elevation,”
says Lefferts. He and Smith have routinely collaborated on research, and he has been
a guest lecturer in her classes.
The researchers measured participants’ heart function, artery stiffness, and blood
flow transmission to the brain in Kathmandu, Nepal, about 4,000 feet above sea level,
and in Pheriche, a small town near the base camp that sits 10,000 feet higher. Data
analysis is currently underway.
Lefferts, an exercise science major at Skidmore, was a research assistant for two
years under Smith and Health and Human Physiological Sciences Professor Pat Fehling.
The research group had just been awarded a $1 million grant from the Department of
Homeland Security to study why heart attacks account for nearly half of deaths in
the line of duty among U.S. firefighters. For his part, Lefferts analyzed the effects
of different types of safety clothing on firefighters' physiological and perceptual
responses to exercise. The research earned him the Kerner Undergraduate Student Investigator
Award at the regional American College of Sports Medicine conference.
Lefferts went on to attain his Ph.D. in exercise science at Syracuse University. “I came to appreciate over time the opportunities and resources that Skidmore students have access to,” he says. “I graduated with more research skills and experience than most students with master’s degrees, and that set me up to hit the ground running toward my doctoral degree.”
