Kazuki Hotta
Associate Professor at Department of Rehabilitation, Kitasato University School of Allied Health Sciences, Sagamihara, Japan
I received my Ph.D. from Kitasato University Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Japan, in 2013. I further enriched my academic experience as a visiting researcher in Judy Muller-Delp’ s Lab at University of Florida, USA, in 2012 to start experiment of skeletal muscle arterioles. After the Ph.D. I restarted as a postdoctoral fellow in Delp’ s lab at Florida State University, USA in
2014 – 2016. I learned experimental techniques on muscle physiology and microcirculation, and returned to Japan. From 2016 – 2019 I continued postdoctoral fellow in University of Electro-communications, Japan, and moved to Niigata University of Health and Welfare, Japan in 2019. From 2022 to the present, I have been engaged in research and education as an associate professor at Kitasato University.
Clinical license – Physiotherapy Academic society – Japanese Physical Therapy Association, Microcirculatory Society, ISOTT, American Physiological Society
Research interest
As a physical therapist, I am investigating the questions I have in my clinical practice through basic experiments using animal model. I am particularly interested in the regulatory mechanisms of microcirculation in skeletal muscles and microcirculatory disturbance caused by advancing age, cardiovascular diseases, sepsis, and diabetes. I have been continuing my research on skeletal muscle microcirculation since my graduate studies. Endothelial and smooth muscles are interacting each other, contributing to blood flow regulation in skeletal muscle. Especially during exercise or muscle contractions, oxygen demand dramatically increases. _e red blood cell flux and velocity must increase promptly once contraction begins, but pathological conditions can impair this process. As a translational research, my role is to bring the knowledge gained from basic research back to the clinical setting. Experimental techniques in my lab include in vivo imaging using microscope, videocapillaroscopy, two-photon laser scanning microscopy, and muscle oxygen pressure measurement during muscle contraction using phosphorescence quenching technique.
