The present study investigates the thermal response of individuals whose forearms were subjected to severe cold stimulation and how it is influenced by the personal and physiological characteristics. So, the hands’ transient thermal responses of 89 individuals (male) was observed by thermography imaging technique. Then, statistical analysis was employed to establish an experimental relationships to estimate the thermal response time of the subjects with different individual and physiological conditions. The results showed that among the 9 individual and physiological parameters (age, vascular fat, muscle percentage, fat percentage, body mass index, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate and fasting time), only four independent parameters including internal fat, body mass index, systolic blood pressure and fasting time are significant related to the response time. Also, using multivariate linear regression, a relationship was developed to estimate the thermal response time of the subjects against cold stimulation. This relationship indicates that the response time of the obese can be up to 20% higher than that of the lean subjects. In addition, the results shows that for each one hour after the last meal, the thermal response of the body is slower about 1%.

Keywords: Skin thermal response, Cold stimulation, Infrared thermography

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