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Published on: January 10, 2013
Increases in inspiratory neural drive in response to rapid oscillating airflow braking forces (vibration)
David Paul Sumners1, David A Green, Katya N Mileva
1London South Bank University, Sport and Exercise Science Research Centre, Faculty of Engineering, Science and the Built Environment, London, United Kingdom. sumnerdp@lsbu.ac.uk
Objective:
To investigate whether 10 breaths against a vibration stimulus elicits increments of spontaneous and maximal inspiratory mouth pressure (maxMP) and tidal mean inspiratory flow (iV(T)/T(I)) upon stimulus removal.
Methods:
Twelve healthy subjects (8 female, 4 male; 22-50 years old), recruited from the University student body, completed 3 maximal inspirations before (pre) and after (post) 10 inspirations against resistive loading with a vibration-type stimulus (VIB; youbreathe, Exoscience Ltd., London, UK), pressure-matched resistive loading (RES) or resting breathing (CON; no load). The trials were presented in a random order. maxMP and involuntary tidal breathing were compared pre and post conditioning.
Results:
Inspiratory neural drive increased only after VIB as evidenced by increased tidal and maxMP and mean inspiratory flow (iV(T)/T(I); p < 0.05). There was no effect of either resistance or control breathing on maximal maxMP or tidal responses.
Conclusions:
Ten conditioning breaths of VIB lead to increased maximal inspiratory mouth pressure and spontaneous mouth pressure and mean inspiratory flow possibly through a common mechanism of increased descending respiratory drive.
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