The effect of low frequency breathing compared with spontaneous breathing was examined at rest and during exercise (40 watts) in 12 patients suffering from severe chronic obstructive bronchitis. At rest low frequency breathing improved significantly the alveolar ventilation and the tensions of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the arterial blood. There was no significant change in ventilation minute...

1. Sympathetic activation in congestive heart failure indicates a poor prognosis. Haemodynamic correlates of increased sympathetic nerve traffic to muscle (MSNA) and to the heart have been well characterized, but these account for only 50 to 60% of the variance in sympathetic activity between patients.2. In healthy subjects, breathing pattern modulates MSNA and positive airway pressure consiste...

The impact of meditation on cardiorespiratory synchronization with respect to breathing oscillations and the modulations of heart rate induced by respiration (respiratory sinus arrhythmia, RSA) was investigated in this study. Four different exercises (spontaneous breathing, mental task, Zen meditation, and Kinhin meditation) were consecutively performed by nine subjects mainly without any exper...

RATIONALE Recent literature emphasizes the utility of QT variability to study ventricular electrophysiologic function. In this investigation, we sought to test the hypothesis that beat-to-beat fluctuations in QT intervals are mediated by sympathetic activity in normal subjects using postural challenge and isoproterenol infusions. SUBJECTS AND METHODS We obtained ECG in the supine and standing...

BACKGROUND Continued breathing following ventricular fibrillation has here-to-fore not been described. METHODS We analyzed the spontaneous ventilatory activity during the first several minutes of ventricular fibrillation (VF) in our isoflurane anesthesized swine model of out-of-hospital cardiac arrest. The frequency and type of ventilatory activity was monitored by pneumotachometer and main s...