I will be sitting down or laying down and at random will find myself either taking a deep breath out of nowhere or a short, quick inhale. In my mind I imagine it is like my lungs are keeping a normal rhythm and then just decide to either take a big gulp of inhale or exhale, etc. and then goes back to normal. Nothing medically alarming…just wondering why that happens and the physiology behind why that happen. Thanks in advance!
In: 250
What triggers?
Chemical receptors (known as chemoreceptors) found in your spinal cord and heart blood vessels detect O2 and CO2 levels. Too little O2 would result in more breathing but too much CO2 would result in more breathing as well (to expel it from our blood because it can lower our blood ph (ideal pH is around 7).
There is constant detection from the receptors and what happens is it’s sending this info in real-time to parts of the brain that regulates breathing (those parts are the pons and the medulla). So the signal travels from receptors down the neurons and into the brain.
From the brain, the information is processed and it in turn sends a feedback signal (also via neurons) giving instructions for the body (heart, lungs, breathing muscles) to breathe more frequently and forcefully.
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