Breathing in waves: Understanding respiratory-brain coupling as a gradient of predictive oscillations

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Cognitive Science
• Computational Neuroscience

Background:

• Breathing rhythms critically regulate neural oscillations, impacting cognitive, affective, and perceptual processes.
• Respiratory modulation of brain oscillations is observed across various species and frequency bands.
• A unified framework explaining these respiratory-brain interactions is currently lacking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To synthesize existing research on respiratory influences on neural oscillations.
• To propose a novel neural gradient framework for respiratory-modulated brain oscillations.
• To investigate the computational mechanisms linking breathing, brain activity, and psychiatric disorders.

Main Methods:

• Literature review and synthesis of current findings.
• Examination of computational models of neural oscillations.
• Mapping respiratory-modulated oscillations onto a hierarchical predictive coding framework.

Main Results:

• A proposed neural gradient model of respiratory-modulated brain oscillations.
• Integration of computational models to explain the functional role of respiratory modulation.
• Identification of potential links between respiratory-brain coupling and psychiatric conditions.

Conclusions:

• Breathing acts as a fundamental regulator of neural dynamics across the brain.
• Understanding respiratory-brain coupling offers new insights into cognitive function.
• This framework may illuminate the pathophysiology of psychiatric disorders and suggest novel therapeutic targets.