Hypoxia and Cardiorespiratory Control

To maintain the adequate oxygen level in the body, which is essential for healthy life, the respiratory and cardiovascular systems play vitally important roles. When the oxygen level in the body is not sufficient, i.e., when hypoxia is loaded, the respiratory and cardiovascular systems respond to restore, compensate or adapt to hypoxia, e.g., by increasing ventilation. Traditionally, it has been thought that hypoxia is detected solely in the carotid and aortic bodies, i.e., in the peripheral chemoreceptors, the information from the peripheral chemoreceptors is transmitted to the respiratory and cardiovascular centers in the brainstem and respiratory and cardiovascular neural output is regulated. However, recent progress in neurophysiology has clarified that there are hypoxia-sensing mechanisms not only in the periphery but also in the central nervous system. Although these issues have been actively studied, precise mechanisms of respiratory and cardiovascular responsive mechanisms to hypoxia have not been fully elucidated.

In this article collection, we intend to publish a series of papers investigating the physiological mechanisms of respiratory and cardiovascular responses to hypoxia. This article collection reports the latest research findings covering the following topics; hypoxia–sensing mechanism in the carotid body, hypoxia–sensing mechanism in the brainstem, hypoxia–sensing mechanism in the spinal cord, effect of intermittent hypoxia on the recovery of acute spinal cord injury, effect of acute hypoxia on the blood pressure regulation in the brain.

This Research Topic will help us comprehensively understand the mechanism how the respiratory and cardiovascular systems respond to hypoxia to restore, compensate or adapt to hypoxia, and will be the basis of the future research, e.g., to develop drugs that facilitate the recovery from hypoxic brain injuries or enhance hypoxic ventilatory augmentation.