An assessment of overall open-loop "gain" of CO2-ventilation feedback control system in hypoxia

Overall open-loop gain of the CO2-ventilation feedback control system in hypoxia (GHCO2) was determined on 8 male and one female healthy subjects. They breathed in a closed circuit, and were subjected to the progressive hypoxia test. This procedure was first conducted without dead space (DS), then with 250, 500, and finally 750 ml DS, consecutively. GHCO2 was calculated by dividing the slope of the CO2 response curve (S) by that of the metabolic hyperbola (SL). GHCO2 was considerably larger than the overall open-loop gain of the O2-ventilation feedback control system (GO2) previously obtained. This was ascribed to the facts that S was larger than the slope of the hypoxia response curve, and that the absolute value of SL in GHCO2 was smaller than that in GO2.