TY  - JOUR
A1  - Stoeckel, M. Cornelia
A1  - Esser, Roland W.
A1  - Gamer, Matthias
A1  - Büchel, Christian
A1  - von Leupoldt, Andreas
T1  - Brain Responses during the Anticipation of Dyspnea
JF  - Neural Plasticity
N2  - Dyspnea is common in many cardiorespiratory diseases. Already the anticipation of this aversive symptom elicits fear in many patients resulting in unfavorable health behaviors such as activity avoidance and sedentary lifestyle. This study investigated brain mechanisms underlying these anticipatory processes. We induced dyspnea using resistive-load breathing in healthy subjects during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Blocks of severe and mild dyspnea alternated, each preceded by anticipation periods. Severe dyspnea activated a network of sensorimotor, cerebellar, and limbic areas. The left insular, parietal opercular, and cerebellar cortices showed increased activation already during dyspnea anticipation. Left insular and parietal opercular cortex showed increased connectivity with right insular and anterior cingulate cortex when severe dyspnea was anticipated, while the cerebellum showed increased connectivity with the amygdala. Notably, insular activation during dyspnea perception was positively correlated with midbrain activation during anticipation. Moreover, anticipatory fear was positively correlated with anticipatory activation in right insular and anterior cingulate cortex. The results demonstrate that dyspnea anticipation activates brain areas involved in dyspnea perception. The involvement of emotion-related areas such as insula, anterior cingulate cortex, and amygdala during dyspnea anticipation most likely reflects anticipatory fear and might underlie the development of unfavorable health behaviors in patients suffering from dyspnea.
KW  - brain response
KW  - dyspnea
KW  - cardiorespiratory disease
KW  - anticipation
Y1  - 2016
U6  - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:bvb:20-opus-166238
VL  - 2016
IS  - 6434987
ER  -