De-Sigh-Phering the Neural Basis of Sighing

De-sigh-phering the neural basis of sighing

Embargo

·  London:Monday 08 February 2016 16:00 (GMT)

·  New York:Monday 08 February 2016 11:00 (EST)

·  Tokyo:Tuesday 09 February 2016 01:00 (JST)

·  Sydney:Tuesday 09 February 2016 03:00 (AEDT)

The discovery of a specific brain circuit that may underlie sighing behaviour is reported online this week inNature. The study finds that manipulation of two parallel pathways consisting of a few hundred neurons changes the frequency of sighing in rodents without affecting other aspects of breathing.

Deep, long breaths known as sighs are a crucial part of breathing that are associated with sadness, exhaustion or relief. Sighs occur spontaneously several times per hour in humans and dozens of times per hour in rodents during normal breathing. Sighing may help to re-inflate the tiny air sacs in the lungs, but until now the neural pathways involved in this behaviour have been elusive.

Mark Krasnow, Jack Feldman and colleagues identify approximately 230 neurons in the breathing control centre of the brain that express one of two genes (NmborGrp) and project to a small subset of receptors in a cluster of several thousand neurons that collectively generate respiratory rhythm (the preBötzinger complex or preBötC). They find that injecting either or both NMB or GRP neuropeptides into the preBötC substantially increased sighing in rats. Simultaneously inhibiting these pathways is shown to severely reduce or eliminate sighing. Finally, they show that neurons expressing these receptors are critical for inducing sighing when rats are exposed to an oxygen-deficient environment.

The work could be used to investigate the physiological benefits of sighing and to elucidate the full circuit—which may also integrate emotional input—responsible for transforming normal breaths into sighs.

Article and author details

1.  The peptidergic control circuit for sighing

Corresponding Authors

Jack Feldman

University of California Los Angeles,Los Angeles,California,United States

Email:,Tel: +1 310 825 0954

Mark Krasnow

Stanford University,Stanford,California,United States

Email:,Tel: +1 650 723 7191

DOI

10.1038/nature16964

Online paper*

http://nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature16964

* Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends).