Respiratory plasticity in the behaving rat following chronic intermittent hypoxia

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingsChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Chronic intermittent hypoxia (CIH), a feature of obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) has been shown to have myriad effects on the respiratory control system. The effects on breathing are of great clinical significance for the sleep apnoea patient. We sought to determine the effect of CIH on normoxic ventilation. Both male and female adult Wistar rats were studied due to the evident sex difference in the prevalence of OSA. A role for oxidative stress in respiratory modifications was also explored. Adult male (n = 30) and female (n = 16) rats were exposed to alternating periods of N2 and O2 for 90s each, bringing the ambient oxygen concentration to 5% at nadir (CIH) group. Sham groups were subject to cycles of air/air under identical experimental conditions. A subset of male rats (8 controls, 8 CIH) had free access to water containing 1mM Tempol (SOD-mimetic) at all times. Treatments were carried out for 8 hours a day for 9 days. Following treatment, normoxic ventilation was assessed by whole body plethysmography in sleeping animals. Baseline normoxic ventilation was increased in both male and female treated rats but this did not achieve statistical significance. However, ventilatory drive (VT/Ti) was significantly increased in male rats. Chronic treatment with Tempol abolished this effect. Conversely, CIH had no significant effect on VT/Ti in female rats. Our results indicate subtle effects of intermittent hypoxia on breathing in conscious behaving rats. We speculate the increased ventilatory drive following CIH represents a form a neural plasticity - a ROS dependent phenomenon - with sexual dimorphism.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationNew Frontiers in Respiratory Control
Subtitle of host publicationXIth Annual Oxford Conference on Modeling and Control of Breathing
EditorsIkuo Homma, Hiroshi Onimaru, Yoshinosuke Fukuchi
Pages267-270
Number of pages4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2010
Externally publishedYes

Publication series

NameAdvances in Experimental Medicine and Biology
Volume669
ISSN (Print)0065-2598

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