Interferences between breathing, experimental dyspnoea and bodily self-consciousness

Etienne Allard (1, 2) , Elisa Canzoneri (2) , Dan Adler (3) , Capucine Morélot-Panzini (4, 1) , Javier Bello-Ruiz (2) , Bruno Herbelin (2) , Olaf Blanke (2, 3) , Thomas Similowski (1, 3)

1 Neurophysiologie Respiratoire Expérimentale et Clinique
2 EPFL - Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
3 HUG - Hôpitaux Universitaires de Genève
4 CHU Pitié-Salpêtrière [AP-HP]

Dyspnoea, a subjective experience of breathing discomfort, is a most distressing symptom. It implicates complex cortical networks that partially overlap with those underlying bodily self-consciousness, the experience that the body is one’s own within a given location (self-identification and self-location, respectively). Breathing as an interoceptive signal contributes to bodily self-consciousness: we predicted that inducing experimental dyspnoea would modify or disrupt this contribution. We also predicted that manipulating bodily self-consciousness with respiratory-visual stimulation would possibly attenuate dyspnoea. Twenty-five healthy volunteers were exposed to synchronous and asynchronous respiratory-visual illumination of an avatar during normal breathing and mechanically loaded breathing that elicited dyspnoea. During normal breathing, synchronous respiratory-visual stimulation induced illusory self-identification with the avatar and an illusory location of the subjects’ breathing towards the avatar. This did not occur when respiratory-visual stimulation was performed during dyspnoea-inducing loaded breathing. In this condition, the affective impact of dyspnoea was attenuated by respiratory-visual stimulation, particularly when asynchronous. This study replicates and reinforces previous studies about the integration of interoceptive and exteroceptive signals in the construction of bodily self-consciousness. It confirms the existence of interferences between experimental dyspnoea and cognitive functions. It suggests that respiratory-visual stimulation should be tested as a non-pharmacological approach of dyspnoea treatment.

Domaines: Neurosciences [q-bio.NC]

Etienne Allard, Elisa Canzoneri, Dan Adler, Capucine Morélot-Panzini, Javier Bello-Ruiz, et al.. Interferences between breathing, experimental dyspnoea and bodily self-consciousness. Scientific Reports, 2017, 7, pp.9990. ⟨10.1038/s41598-017-11045-y⟩. ⟨hal-01590724⟩