School of Kinesiology, Western University, London, ON, N6A 3K7, Canada.
Faculty of Health Sciences, Western University, 1151 Richmond Street, London, ON, N6A 3K7, Canada.
Exp Brain Res. 2022 Oct;240(10):2623-2631. doi: 10.1007/s00221-022-06437-0. Epub 2022 Aug 13.
Maintaining standing balance is vital to completing activities in daily living. Recent findings suggest an interaction between cardiovascular and postural control systems. Volitional slow breathing can modulate the cardiovascular response and affect postural control during quiet standing. However, the effects of slow breathing during threats to standing balance have not been studied. The study examined the effect of slow breathing on the latency and amplitude of postural muscle responses to perturbations of the base of support in healthy, young adults. Twenty-seven participants completed two balance perturbation tasks in standing on an instrumented split-belt treadmill while breathing spontaneously and breathing at 6 breaths per minute. Each perturbation task consisted of 25 posteriorly directed translations of the treadmill belts every 8-12 s. Muscle latency and muscle burst amplitude were measured using surface electromyography from the right limb for the quadriceps (QUADS), medial hamstring (MH), gastrocnemii (GASTROC), soleus (SOL), and tibialis anterior (TA) muscle groups, while a respiratory belt was used to record respiratory rate. Results indicated that during the slow breathing task both muscle latency (p = 0.022) and muscle burst amplitude (p = 0.011) decreased compared to spontaneous breathing. The EMG pre-perturbation activation was not significantly different in any muscle group between conditions (p > 0.167). The study found that reducing respiratory rate to approximately 6 breaths per minute affects the neuromuscular responses in the lower limb muscles to perturbations.
保持站立平衡对于完成日常生活中的活动至关重要。最近的研究结果表明，心血管和姿势控制系统之间存在相互作用。自主缓慢呼吸可以调节心血管反应，并影响安静站立时的姿势控制。然而，在站立平衡受到威胁时，缓慢呼吸的影响尚未得到研究。本研究探讨了缓慢呼吸对健康年轻成年人在支撑基础受到干扰时的姿势肌肉反应潜伏期和振幅的影响。27 名参与者在仪器化的分体式跑步机上以站立姿势完成了两项平衡干扰任务，分别在自主呼吸和 6 次/分钟的呼吸频率下进行。每个干扰任务包括 25 次向后方向的跑步机带平移，每 8-12 秒进行一次。使用右侧肢体的表面肌电图测量股四头肌（QUADS）、内侧腘绳肌（MH）、腓肠肌（GASTROC）、比目鱼肌（SOL）和胫骨前肌（TA）肌肉群的肌肉潜伏期和肌肉爆发幅度，同时使用呼吸带记录呼吸频率。结果表明，与自主呼吸相比，在缓慢呼吸任务中，肌肉潜伏期（p=0.022）和肌肉爆发幅度（p=0.011）均降低。在任何肌肉群中，条件之间的 EMG 预干扰激活均无显著差异（p>0.167）。研究发现，将呼吸频率降低到大约 6 次/分钟会影响下肢肌肉对干扰的神经肌肉反应。
