Breathing mode selectively modulates brain-wide functional connectivity.

ABSTRACT: While respiration is known to rhythmically modulate brain activity, how different breathing modes (nasal vs. oral) affect frequency-specific large-scale neural connectivity in humans remains unexplored. We used resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine how nasal and oral breathing modulate functional brain connectivity, focusing on blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) fluctuations in the intermediate frequency band of 0.1-0.2 Hz in 20 healthy male participants. A fully data-driven ROI-based inference approach across 133 whole-brain ROIs revealed that nasal and oral breathing significantly activated the olfactory region and brainstem, respectively. Seed-based connectivity (SBC) analysis, using nonparametric permutation testing (10,000 iterations) and cluster-

SUBMITTER: Mohammadi S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12617844 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature