The Development and Refinement of Neural Regulation of Chest Wall Motor Control for Voluntary Breathing During Simple and Complex Tasks

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Human speech requires complex motor control of the respiratory, laryngeal, pharyngeal, and oromotor subsystems of the speech mechanism. Of particular interest is the regulation of the breathing subsystem to provide airflow and pressure to the vocal folds for the production of sound. The brain, via a neural pathway called the corticospinal tract, controls this type of voluntary breathing. My research program has extensively studied chest wall movement for non-speech and speech tasks in healthy children and adults. However, the cortical control of the chest wall muscles during non-speech and speech tasks has not been studied and is not understood. My proposed research will investigate the neuromuscular control of lung volume, tracheal pressure and oral pressure for simple and complex non-speech and speech tasks in healthy individuals ranging in age from 4 to 30 years. In our three studies, we will measure chest wall movement and muscle activity. Special signal analyses will be performed on these data to provide an in-depth understanding of how muscles of the chest wall are controlled by the brain in relation to breathing movements and task complexity. The first study will address how lung volume and chest wall pressure generation requirements are controlled by the motor cortex. Adult participants will perform combinations of standardized tasks requiring low and high lung volumes in combination with low and high tracheal and oral pressure targets. Using the same experimental protocol, the second study will investigate the development of cortical control of chest wall muscles in children and adolescents. The third study has been designed to electrically stimulate the corticospinal pathway via the motor cortex using transcranial direct current stimulation on adults. This study will help us determine cortical adaptability for the control of non-speech and speech tasks. The results of these three studies will provide an in-depth understanding of how the neural pathway controls voluntary breathing and its development. This research has important implications for understanding and rehabilitating individuals with chronic neuromuscular disorders affecting the respiratory subsystem of the speech mechanism.