Breathing, Emotion and Evolution

Respiration is one of the most basic motor activities crucial for survival of the individual. It is under total control of the central nervous system, which adjusts respiratory depth and frequency depending on the circumstances the individual finds itself. For this reason this volume not only reviews the basic control systems of respiration, located in the caudal brainstem, but also the higher brain regions, that change depth and frequency of respiration. Scientific knowledge of these systems is crucial for understanding the problems in the many patients suffering from respiratory failure.

1. Physiological and Pathophysiological Interactions between the Respiratory Central Pattern Generator and the Sympathetic Nervous System
2. Coupling of Respiratory and Sympathetic Activities in Rats Submitted to Chronic Intermittent Hypoxia
3. Function and Modulation of Premotor Brainstem Parasympathetic Cardiac Neurons that Control Heart Rate by Hypoxia, Sleep, and Sleep Related Diseases Including Obstructive Sleep Apnea
4. Discharge Properties of Upper Airway Motor Units during Wakefulness and Sleep
5. Effects of Calcium (Ca²⁺) Extrusion Mechanisms on Electrophysiological Properties in a Hypoglossal Motoneuron (HM): Insight from a Mathematical Model
6. Using a Computational Model to Analyze the Effects of Firing Frequency on Synchrony of a Network of Gap Junction-Coupled Hypoglossal Motoneurons (HMs)
7. The Physiological Significance of Postinspiration in Respiratory Control
8. Expiration: Breathing’s Other Face
9. The Effects of Head-Up and Head-Down Tilt on Central Respiratory Chemoreflex Loop Gain Tested by Hyperoxic Rebreathing
10. The Challenges of Respiratory Motor System Recovery following Cervical Spinal Cord Injury
11. Intermittent Hypoxia-Induced Respiratory Long-Term Facilitation is Dominated by Enhanced Burst Frequency, not Amplitude, in Spontaneously Breathing Urethane-Anesthetized Neonatal Rats
12. Chronic Nitric Oxide Synthase Inhibition does not Impair Upper Airway Muscle Adaptation to Chronic Intermittent Hypoxia in the Rat
13. The Generation of Pharyngeal Phase of Swallow and its Coordination with Breathing: Interaction between the Swallow and Respiratory Central Pattern Generators
14. Control of Coughing by Medullary Raphé
15. The Respiratory-Vocal System of Songbirds: Anatomy, Physiology and Neural Control
16. The Lamprey Blueprint of the Mammalian Nervous System
17. The Midbrain Periaqueductal Gray Changes the Eupneic Respiratory Rhythm into a Breathing Pattern Necessary for Survival of the Individual and of the Species