The Control of Breathing in Clinical Practice

The control of breathing results from a complex interactioninvolving the respiratory centers, which feed signals to a centralcontrol mechanism that, in turn, provides output to the effectormuscles. In this review, we describe the individual elements of thissystem, and what is known about their function in man. We outlineclinically relevant aspects of the integration of human ventilatorycontrol system, and describe altered function in response to specialcircumstances, disorders, and medications. We emphasize the clinicalrelevance of this topic by employing case presentations of activepatients from our practice.