Mori Kensaku, Sakano Hitoshi
RIKEN Center for Brain Science, Wako, Saitama, Japan.
Department of Brain Function, School of Medical Sciences, University of Fukui, Matsuoka, Japan.
Front Neurosci. 2024 Sep 9;18:1423694. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2024.1423694. eCollection 2024.
Voluntary behaviors such as sniffing, moving, and eating require decision-making accompanied by intentional respiration. Based on the study of respiration-coherent activity of rodent olfactory networks, we infer that during the inhalation phase of respiration, olfactory cortical areas process environmental odor information and transmit it to the higher multisensory cognitive areas via feedforward pathways to comprehensively evaluate the surrounding situation. We also infer that during the exhalation phase, the higher multisensory areas generate cognitive-signals and transmit them not only to the behavioral output system but also back to the olfactory cortical areas. We presume that the cortical mechanism couples the intentional respiration with the voluntary behaviors. Thus, in one respiratory cycle, the mammalian brain may transmit and process sensory information to cognize and evaluate the multisensory image of the external world, leading to one behavioral decision and one emotional expression. In this perspective article, we propose that one respiratory cycle provides a minimum time unit for decision making during wakefulness.
诸如嗅探、移动和进食等自主行为需要伴随着有意识呼吸的决策过程。基于对啮齿动物嗅觉网络呼吸相干活动的研究，我们推断在呼吸的吸气阶段，嗅觉皮层区域处理环境气味信息，并通过前馈通路将其传递到更高阶的多感官认知区域，以全面评估周围环境。我们还推断在呼气阶段，更高阶的多感官区域产生认知信号，这些信号不仅传递到行为输出系统，还反馈到嗅觉皮层区域。我们推测皮层机制将有意识呼吸与自主行为联系起来。因此，在一个呼吸周期中，哺乳动物大脑可能传递和处理感官信息，以认知和评估外部世界的多感官图像，从而做出一个行为决策和一种情绪表达。在这篇观点文章中，我们提出一个呼吸周期为清醒时的决策提供了一个最小时间单位。
