Breathing is coupled with voluntary action and the cortical readiness potential

Abstract

Voluntary action is a fundamental element of self-consciousness. The readiness potential (RP), a slow drift of neural activity preceding self-initiated movement, has been suggested to reflect neural processes underlying the preparation of voluntary action; yet more than fifty years after its introduction, interpretation of the RP remains controversial. Based on previous research showing that internal bodily signals affect sensory processing and ongoing neural activity, we here investigated the potential role of interoceptive signals in voluntary action and the RP. We report that (1) participants initiate voluntary actions more frequently during expiration, (2) this respiration-action coupling is absent during externally triggered actions, and (3) the RP amplitude is modulated depending on the respiratory phase. Our findings demonstrate that voluntary action is coupled with the respiratory system and further suggest that the RP is associated with fluctuations of ongoing neural activity that are driven by the involuntary and cyclic motor act of breathing.

Behavioral and physiological correlates of kinetically tracking a chaotic target

“…Neural activity, namely the EEG rhythms, could also respond similarly, as elevated attention and readiness are prerequisites for tracking and attempting to predict a complex motion [17]. We furthermore anticipated that this task could bring about entrainment effects at the level of respiration and heart rate, as previously observed in other contexts [18][19][20].…”

“…The initiation of voluntary actions is oftentimes associated with exhalation during respiration [20,60]. Based on the canonical responses to stress, one could expect faster respiration and heart rate under higher chaoticity, but no significant differences in cardiovascular activation were observed.…”

“…A finer-grained analysis was then performed to probe the possible synchrony between taskrelated movement and breathing, as measured in the thorax b th and abdomen b ab : this evaluation was particularly motivated by the prior knowledge that volitional rhythmic movements engender synchronization in respiration [18][19][20]. A representative side-by-side comparison of the breathing signals, representing an approximation of tidal volume, and a component of the cursor motion is visible in Fig 6. We calculated the phase locking between b th and b ab , on the one hand, and x c and y c on the other.…”

Ramp-to-Threshold Dynamics in a Hindbrain Population Controls the Timing of Spontaneous Saccades

“…There is tantalizing evidence, from crayfish to humans, that a build-up in neural activity is related to self-initiated movement (Kagaya & Takahata, 2010Maimon & Assad, 2006;Murakami et al, 2014;Park et al, 2020), but there has been no clear evidence that such neural activity is required for this type of behavior. Indeed, some experiments have suggested that buildup activity is only facilitatory, and other experiments have provided evidence that buildup activity is actually suppressive (Ames & Churchland, 2019;Lara et al, 2018;Wong et al, 2015).…”

Respiration modulates oscillatory neural network activity at rest

“…Although human respiration at rest occurs at much lower frequencies than in mice (and therefore does not overlap with theta or even delta oscillations), cross-frequency coupling of slow respiratory and oscillatory rhythms with high-frequency oscillations conceivably links body and brain states in a highly similar way. Strong support for this hypothesis comes from a recent study 44 showing that the cortical readiness potential, originating within premotor areas, fluctuates with respiration. Notably, the authors suggest crossfrequency coupling to involve neural interactions between premotor areas and both insular and cingulate cortex as well as the medulla, which is precisely the pathway we propose to connect deep and cortical nodes within the RMBO network.…”