Am. J. Respir. Crit. Care Med., Volume 165, Number 8, April 2002, 1041-1047

Influence of Chemoreflexes on Respiratory Variability in Healthy Subjects

Joost G. Van den Aardweg and John M. Karemaker

Department of Physiology, Academic Medical Center, Amsterdam; and Department of Pulmonology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, The Netherlands

The background of this study was the hypothesis that respiratory variability is influenced by chemoreflex regulation. In search for periodicities in the variability due to instability of the respiratory control system, spectral analysis was applied to breath-to-breath variables in 19 healthy subjects at rest. During room-air breathing, coherent oscillations in end-tidal CO₂ (PET_CO2) and mean inspiratory flow (VI/TI) were found in 15 subjects with frequencies mostly below 0.15 cycles per breath. Coherent oscillations in PET_CO2 and VI/TI were expressed by gain (0.13 to 0.34 L/second · kPa) and phase (170° to +8°). The oscillations in VI/TI were in phase with inspiratory volume (VI). A model that describes the effects of chemoreflex feedback to noise in the system could explain these gains and phases, whereas a model without chemoreflex could not. During 100% O₂ breathing, only eight subjects had coherent oscillations in PET_CO2 and VI/TI. The coherent oscillations in PET_CO2 and VI/TI were interpreted as a manifestation of chemoreflex activity. We conclude that respiratory variability is not a random process but contains information on chemoreflex properties, such as the chemoreflex gain. The analysis of respiratory variability therefore provides a new tool to study the action of the chemoreflexes without application of external stimuli.

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