Editorial: Physiology and Physiopathology of Breath-Holding Activity
Résumé
Research into voluntary apnea is becoming increasingly popular in varied laboratories and in the field around the world. In the last 10 years, as many articles have been published than between 1954 and 2011. Breath-hold diving is truly an antique practice; for example, Alexandre Legrand employed professional breath hold divers called “Urinator” in his army, and Japanese Ama and Philippine Bajau people have been known to dive for hundreds of years to gather food. More recently, apnea diving became a high-level competitive sport with impressive performances (e.g., world record for static apnea of 11 mins 35 s and for depth No-Limit diving −214 m), but although constant progress is made, human performance is still far from the prowess of marine mammals (e.g., Ziphius cavirostris, apnea duration: 137 mins and 2,992 m depths). Despite major anatomical and physiological differences between humans and marine mammals, humans present with an interesting physiological response to apnea to limit the effects of hypoxia and/or pressure increase, in which the main physiological functions such as pulmonary, cardiovascular, and nervous functions can be modulated acutely and chronically. The Research Topic focuses on these varied facets but also their trainability and their consequences on health in relation to some hypoxia-related pathologies such as sleep apnea syndrome, pulmonary edema and decompression sickness.
Domaines
Physiologie [q-bio.TO]Origine | Fichiers produits par l'(les) auteur(s) |
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