Center for Neural Engineering, Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, 16802, USA.
Medical Scientist Training Program, College of Medicine, The Pennsylvania State University, Hershey, PA, 17033, USA.
Pflugers Arch. 2023 Jan;475(1):37-48. doi: 10.1007/s00424-022-02721-8. Epub 2022 Jun 28.
Oxygen is critical for neural metabolism, but under most physiological conditions, oxygen levels in the brain are far more than are required. Oxygen levels can be dynamically increased by increases in respiration rate that are tied to the arousal state of the brain and cognition, and not necessarily linked to exertion by the body. Why these changes in respiration occur when oxygen is already adequate has been a long-standing puzzle. In humans, performance on cognitive tasks can be affected by very high or very low oxygen levels, but whether the physiological changes in blood oxygenation produced by respiration have an appreciable effect is an open question. Oxygen has direct effects on potassium channels, increases the degradation rate of nitric oxide, and is rate limiting for the synthesis of some neuromodulators. We discuss whether oxygenation changes due to respiration contribute to neural dynamics associated with attention and arousal.
氧气对神经代谢至关重要，但在大多数生理条件下，大脑中的氧气水平远远超过所需。通过与大脑觉醒状态和认知相关的呼吸率增加，可以动态增加氧气水平，而不一定与身体的用力有关。当氧气已经足够时，为什么会发生这些呼吸变化一直是一个长期存在的难题。在人类中，认知任务的表现会受到非常高或非常低的氧气水平的影响，但呼吸引起的血氧变化是否会产生明显的生理影响仍是一个悬而未决的问题。氧气对钾通道有直接影响，增加了一氧化氮的降解速率，并且是某些神经调质合成的限速步骤。我们讨论了由于呼吸引起的氧合变化是否有助于与注意力和觉醒相关的神经动力学。
