Hizlari gonbidatua: Jose L. Herrero. Cortical dynamics during interoceptive respiratory constraints: from insular detection to frontal cortex compensation

What: Cortical dynamics during interoceptive respiratory constraints: from insular detection to frontal cortex compensation

Where: Auditorium and Auditorium zoom room  (If you would like to attend to this meeting reserve at info@bcbl.eu)

Who: Dr. Jose L. Herrero. PhD, Department of Bioelectronic Medicine, Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research; Manhasset, New York, USA

When:  Thursday, Mar 27th at 12:00 Noon

Interoception, the brain’s ability to sense and regulate internal physiological states, plays a critical role in breathing perception and respiratory control. The prevalence of respiratory problems such as airway constraint sensations has risen steeply over the last decade due to pollutants, overprescription and other life factors. Persistent breathlessness (dyspnea) arises not only from overactivation of pulmonary sensory nerves but also from abnormal cortical processing of respiratory inputs. However, the neural circuits linking respiratory sensory input to higher brain functions remain poorly understood. We developed a novel respiratory sensitivity task to precisely quantify how the cortex detects acute airway constraints. In this task, a resistance applied to a breathing tube partially obstructed the airways during the inspiratory cycle (inspiratory loading). Eleven epilepsy patients implanted with intracranial electrodes in interoceptive cortical areas performed this task, detecting loads of varying magnitudes while breathing through a mouthpiece. Loaded inhalations elicited increases in high-frequency activity (HFA, 70-150 Hz), which were transient in the anterior insular cortex (AIC) but sustained in the frontal cortices. Larger loads induced greater HFA responses than smaller loads. At the behavioral level, consciously perceived loads elicited stronger HFA responses than those that were not consciously detected. Granger causality analyses revealed that the AIC encodes loaded signals and relays them to the orbitofrontal cortices. These findings identify cortical circuits involved in both detecting and responding to potentially threatening airway constraints, providing insights into the neural mechanisms of breathing interoception in individuals experiencing persistent breathlessness such as those with COPD, asthma, chronic anxiety, and cardiopulmonary and neuromuscular disease.