DSM-III-R schizotypal personality features and disorder in offspring, siblings and parents of schizophrenic disorder, affective disorder, and normal control parent probands

Abstract

This chapter describes normalization of embryonic respiration in birds at high altitude. According to Fick's law of diffusion, it can be shown that gaseous exchange at altitude is normalized when the respiratory gas tensions in the air space of an egg are restored to sea level values and when, simultaneously, the partial pressure gradients of O2, CO2, and H2O are reduced in accordance with the increase of the shell conductance. This condition can be achieved by an increase of the ambient O2 and CO2 concentrations, and an increase of relative humidity. A model was calculated for a typical chicken egg weighing 63 g. After 17–19 days of incubation, the O2 consumption of the embryo is 675 ml (STPD)/day. Its CO2 production is 486 ml (STPD)/day and the egg loses 378 mg H2O.day−1. In the air spaces between the inner membrane and the egg shell, the PO2 = 107.7 Torr and the PCO2 = 38.7 Torr. When the same egg is to be incubated at an altitude of 5.5 km, the fractional O2 concentration around the egg must increase to 0.385 and the fractional CO2 concentration to 0.066 to maintain the same gaseous exchange and the same air space gas tensions as at sea level.