Thursday, March 05, 2020

How our brains create breathing rhythm is unique to every breath

Amazing stuff! Sounds almost mysterious how such a vital function as breathing is regulated in our brain! Just the language used by these scientists to describe their discovery is unusual to say the least.

"We were surprised to learn that how our brain cells work together to generate breathing rhythm is different every time we take a breath ... he UCLA team studied slices of brain tissue from mice and preBötzinger complex neurons that had been meticulously isolated from the brainstem. 
By recording the cells’ electrical activity in a lab dish, the team could eavesdrop on the neurons’ conversations with their network neighbors.
... the neurons’ chats resembled a choir whose members are practicing and singing over each other without benefit of a conductor. ... Each breath begins as hundreds of individual neurons haphazardly fire at low levels, then quickly synchronize. The synchronized effort prompts a burst of activity that signals muscles in the diaphragm and chest to contract, causing the chest to expand.  ...
As the signal subsides, the chest pushes air out of the lungs for exhalation. The cycle repeats, generating the rhythm of breathing. ... how these neurons move to synchronize and generate rhythm is different in every breathing cycle"

How our brains create breathing rhythm is unique to every breath | UCLA: Research led by UCLA neurobiologist Jack Feldman finds that every breath we take arises from a disorderly group of neurons.

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