“Brain–breath” interactions: respiration-timing–dependent impact on functional brain networks and beyond

Breathing is a natural daily action that one cannot do without, and it sensitively and intensely changes under various situations. What if this essential act of breathing can impact our overall well-being? Recent studies have demonstrated that breathing oscillations couple with higher brain functions, i.e., perception, motor actions, and cognition. Moreover, the timing of breathing, a phase transition from exhalation to inhalation, modulates specific cortical activity and accuracy in cognitive tasks. To determine possible respiratory roles in attentional and memory processes and functional neural networks, we discussed how breathing interacts with the brain that are measured by electrophysiology and functional neuroimaging: (i) respiration-dependent modulation of mental health and cognition; (ii) respiratory rhythm generation and respiratory pontomedullary networks in the brainstem; (iii) respiration-dependent effects on specific brainstem regions and functional neural networks (e.g., glutamatergic PreBötzinger complex neurons, GABAergic parafacial neurons, adrenergic C1 neurons, parabrachial nucleus, locus coeruleus, temporoparietal junction, default-mode network, ventral attention network, and cingulo-opercular salience network); and (iv) a potential application of breathing manipulation in mental health care. These outlines and considerations of "brain-breath" interactions lead to a better understanding of the interoceptive and cognitive mechanisms that underlie brain-body interactions in health conditions and in stress-related and neuropsychiatric disorders.