Study finds each breath is closely linked to brain activity tied to memory 

​

A study has found that each breath is closely linked to patterns of neural activity in brain involved in cognition, emotion, and memory, suggesting that the brain is tracking subtle variations between breaths.

Changes in breathing, such as a longer inhale or slower exhale, are reflected in corresponding patterns of neural activity, revealing a much more precise connection between breathing and the brain than traditional measures like breaths per minute.

“Every single breath is different,” first author Eena Kosik-Rose, a PhD student in the University of California San Diego’s department of cognitive science, said.

“You can pause your breathing for several seconds, take a super deep breath or have a shallow exhale. What we’re showing is that those differences in the shape of each breath are reflected in the shape of brain activity,” Kosik-Rose said.

For the study, published in The Journal of Neuroscience, researchers represented each breath as a wave-like pattern, with the rises and falls corresponding to changes in airflow as a person inhales and exhales.

The shape of each respiratory wave was compared with the corresponding pattern of electrical activity in the brain.

Unlike a simple measure of breathing rate, the approach captures subtle differences in timing, volume and shape from one breath to the next, the researchers said.

“By leveraging invasive human brain recordings from 16 participants (8 female, 8 male), we found respiration-neural waveform coupling on a breath-by-breath, cycle-by-cycle basis across limbic and cortical forebrain regions,” the authors wrote.

Previous studies have found that the timing of breathing can influence attention and memory. 

People were found to perform slightly better on a memory task when they encounter information while inhaling rather than exhaling.

Breath control is also used to help calm people experiencing symptoms of PTSD.

“Our results show that the coupling between breathing and neural activity is much richer than previously appreciated, and our approach opens new avenues for studying these peripheral-to-central nervous system interactions in a more robust, temporally precise manner,” the team said.

The researchers said the findings provide a new way to study one of the body’s most fundamental rhythms.

The study could eventually help better understand conditions in which the relationship between breathing and the brain goes dangerously awry such as in sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP) and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), they said.

“Future research could investigate whether the breathing pattern provides a warning that breathing is about to stop in SUDEP or SIDS,” co-author Bradley Voytek, professor and chair of the department of cognitive science, said.

This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever.