ArticleBrain sciences2021
A Bridge between the Breath and the Brain: Synchronization of Respiration, a Pupillometric Marker of the Locus Coeruleus, and an EEG Marker of Attentional Control State.
Article in Brain sciences, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Inconclusive evidence that breathing shapes pupil dynamics in humans: a systematic review.Pflugers Archiv : European journal of physiology · 2023Pooled it
- Spontaneous perceptual reversals are accompanied by systematic changes in pupil size but not respiration phase.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- The Pupil-Brain System at Rest: Spontaneous Pupil Fluctuations as Markers of Neuromodulatory and Network Dynamics.Psychophysiology · 2026Review
- Respiration as a dynamic modulator of sensory sampling.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The Rhythmic Embodied Perception Framework of breath, brain, and perception.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Review
- Sighs Shape Respiratory Variability and Pupil Dynamics and Adapt to Sustained Attention Demands.Psychophysiology · 2026Article
- Long Exhalations as Complementary Treatment for Chronic Pain: A Pilot Study.Journal of clinical medicine · 2025Article
- It's About Time-Breathing Dynamics Modulate Emotion and Cognition.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- The pupillary respiratory-phase response: pupil size is smallest around inhalation onset and largest during exhalation.The Journal of physiology · 2025Article
- Paced Breathing Associated With Pupil Diameter Oscillations at the Same Rate and Reduced Lapses in Attention.Psychophysiology · 2025Article
- Oscillatory components of bidirectional cardio-respiratory coupling in depression and suicidal ideation: insights from swarm decomposition and entropy analysis.Frontiers in network physiology · 2025Article
- Arousal and sustained attention fluctuate differently with respiration in younger and older adults.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Article
- A Dynamic Link between Respiration and Arousal.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Dynamic mechanisms that couple the brain and breathing to the external environment.Communications biology · 2024Review
- Greater physical fitness (Acta physiologica (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Sports and Weight Control in Children.Cureus · 2024Review
- Greater physical fitness (Vo2Max) in healthy older adults associated with increased integrity of the Locus Coeruleus-Noradrenergic system.Research square · 2023Article
- Review
- State-of-the-art imaging of neuromodulatory subcortical systems in aging and Alzheimer's disease: Challenges and opportunities.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Yogic and meditative traditions have long held that the fluctuations of the breath and the mind are intimately related. While respiratory modulation of cortical activity and attentional switching are established, the extent to which electrophysiological markers of attention exhibit synchronization with respiration is unknown. To this end, we examined (1) frontal midline theta-beta ratio (TBR), an indicator of attentional control state known to correlate with mind wandering episodes and functional connectivity of the executive control network; (2) pupil diameter (PD), a known proxy measure of locus coeruleus (LC) noradrenergic activity; and (3) respiration for evidence of phase synchronization and information transfer (multivariate Granger causality) during quiet restful breathing. Our results indicate that both TBR and PD are simultaneously synchronized with the breath, suggesting an underlying oscillation of an attentionally relevant electrophysiological index that is phase-locked to the respiratory cycle which could have the potential to bias the attentional system into switching states. We highlight the LC's pivotal role as a coupling mechanism between respiration and TBR, and elaborate on its dual functions as both a chemosensitive respiratory nucleus and a pacemaker of the attentional system. We further suggest that an appreciation of the dynamics of this weakly coupled oscillatory system could help deepen our understanding of the traditional claim of a relationship between breathing and attention.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.