Over the last decade, new technology has been developed to continuously record the electrical activity of the diaphragm (EAdi) at the bedside [1]. EAdi monitoring has been shown to be useful in assessing the patient’s ventilatory drive, in adjusting ventilatory support, and in detecting patient–ventilator asynchrony [2–4]. In the present case, we highlight how monitoring EAdi could be a sensiti...

NEW FINDINGS What is the central question of this study? Does the combination of a higher neural respiratory drive and greater dynamic mechanical ventilatory constraints during exercise in healthy women versus men form the mechanistic basis of sex differences in activity-related dyspnoea? What is the main finding and its importance? Sex differences in activity-related dyspnoea in health primari...

We studied respiratory neural activity generated during expiration. Motoneuronal activity was recorded simultaneously from abdominal (AbN), phrenic (PN), hypoglossal (HN) and central vagus nerves from neonatal and juvenile rats in situ. During eupnoeic activity, low-amplitude post-inspiratory (post-I) discharge was only present in AbN motor outflow. Expression of AbN late-expiratory (late-E) ac...

In this paper, using a personal computer (PC), the practical implementation of scalar and vector control methods on a three–phase rotor surface- type permanent magnet synchronous machine drive is discussed. Based on the machine dynamic equations and the above control strategies, two block diagrams are presented first for closed-loop speed controlling of the machine drive/system. Then, the desig...

T he reason for wishing to use electrical signals to represent the output of the respiratory control system is that the traditional measurement, ventilation, is often unsatisfactory for this purpose. The basic problem is that ventilation is too far removed from the central controller, by a number of variable transformation steps, to satisfactorily represent its output. Abnormalities in neuromus...

This study addresses the hypothesis that multiple afferent systems share elements of a distributed brain stem network that modulates the respiratory motor pattern. Data were collected from 18 decerebrate, bilaterally vagotomized, paralyzed, artificially ventilated cats. Up to 28 neurons distributed in the rostral and caudal ventral respiratory group, nucleus tractus solitarius, and raphe obscur...

Respiration in Lymnaea is a hypoxia-driven rhythmic behavior, which is controlled by an identified network of central pattern generating (CPG) neurons. However, the precise site(s) (i.e., central or peripheral) at which hypoxia acts and the cellular mechanisms by which the respiratory chemosensory drive is conveyed to the CPG were previously unknown. Using semi-intact and isolated ganglionic pr...

Neural respiratory drive, quantified by the parasternal intercostal muscle electromyogram (EMGpara), provides a sensitive measure of respiratory system load-capacity balance. Reference values for EMGpara-based measures are lacking and the influence of individual anthropometric characteristics is not known. EMGpara is conventionally expressed as a percentage of that obtained during a maximal ins...

High pressure and anaesthetic agents are mutual antagonists in intact animals, but antagonism is not observed in isolated nerve cells. In order to test the hypothesis that a neural network might display pressure-anaesthetic antagonism not found in simpler systems, we have examined the effects of pentobarbitone at normal pressure and at 10.1 MPa helium pressure on the rhythmic activity of medull...

In this paper, a new method is proposed for the speed control of a three-phase current forced synchronous machine drive. This metohd is based on the use of an approximate constant commutation safety margin angle in the output thyristor bridge of the drive system as well as on the compenastion of stator magnetization reaction. The commutation process in the output converter of the machine driv...