Cycle-by-cycle respiration waveforms are coupled with the shape of neural oscillations

Eena Kosik-Rose; Guangyu Zhou; Andrew Sheriff; Joshua M Rosenow; Stephan U Schuele; Chima O Oluigbo; Saige Anabel Teti; Mohamad Koubeissi; Md Rakibul Mowla; Ariane E Rhone; Sukhbinder Kumar; Brian Dlouhy; Christina Zelano; Bradley Voytek

doi:10.64898/2026.04.13.718339

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Cycle-by-cycle respiration waveforms are coupled with the shape of neural oscillations

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Cycle-by-cycle respiration waveforms are coupled with the shape of neural oscillations

Eena Kosik-Rose, Guangyu Zhou, Andrew Sheriff, Joshua M Rosenow, Stephan U Schuele, Chima O Oluigbo, Saige Anabel Teti, Mohamad Koubeissi, Md Rakibul Mowla, Ariane E Rhone, …

bioRxiv

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

04/14/2026

DOI: 10.64898/2026.04.13.718339

PMID: 42039630

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https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.04.13.718339View

Preprint (Author's original) This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

Beyond sustaining life, breathing is a vital physiological rhythm that shapes cognition, perception, emotional regulation, and mental health. Breathing has a direct effect on neuronal excitability and is coupled to neural oscillations across a variety of brain regions. Notably, both respiration and neural oscillations are asymmetric and not perfectly rhythmic: for example, every breath has a different shape and duration, and is interspersed with variable pauses. Here, we examined the coupling between breathing and the brain by quantifying the nonsinusoidal features of each breath and comparing it to the shape of each corresponding neural oscillation cycle. By leveraging invasive human brain recordings from 16 participants, we found respiration-neural waveform coupling on a breath-by-breath, cycle-by-cycle basis across limbic and cortical forebrain regions. For decades, the dominant perspective on cognition and mental health have focused on the brain, but recent work is highlighting the importance of brain-body interactions. Our results show that the coupling between breathing and neural activity is much richer than previously appreciated, and our approach opens new avenues for studying these peripheral-to-central nervous system interactions in a more robust, temporally precise manner.

Details

Title: Subtitle: Cycle-by-cycle respiration waveforms are coupled with the shape of neural oscillations
Creators: Eena Kosik-Rose
Guangyu Zhou - Northwestern University
Andrew Sheriff - Northwestern University
Joshua M Rosenow - Northwestern University
Stephan U Schuele - Northwestern University
Chima O Oluigbo - George Washington University
Saige Anabel Teti - Children's National
Mohamad Koubeissi - George Washington University
Md Rakibul Mowla - University of Iowa
Ariane E Rhone - University of Iowa
Sukhbinder Kumar - University of Iowa
Brian Dlouhy - University of Iowa
Christina Zelano - Northwestern University
Bradley Voytek - University of California San Diego
Resource Type: Preprint
Publication Details: bioRxiv
DOI: 10.64898/2026.04.13.718339
PMID: 42039630
ISSN: 2692-8205
eISSN: 2692-8205
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory; United States
Language: English
Date posted: 04/14/2026
Academic Unit: Stead Family Department of Pediatrics; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Neurosurgery
Record Identifier: 9985157516902771

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