Network of neurons creates a unique rhythm for each breath we take
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Research reveals that a small network of neurons continuously adjusts our breathing.
There is arguably nothing more important a person has to do than breathe.
Breathing occurs most of the time without us having to think about it, and a good thing, too — it keeps us alive.
One might expect that some sort of powerful neurological clock regulates our breathing. However, researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have found that it is not so simple.
Behind our breathing is a mechanism that is considerably more improvisational than experts previously suspected.
For every single breath, the neurons responsible fire off in unsynchronized chaos before ultimately coalescing into a single cohesive signal that prompts motorneurons to produce an inhalation.
The study appears in the journal Neuron.
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