Grant: Catalyst Grant: Catalyzing Innovation in Preterm Birth Research

Newborn preterm infants often display irregular breathing during sleep. If not properly managed, respiratory disturbances during sleep can be life threatening (SIDS) or cause life-long health consequences (poor weight gain, cognitive and behavioural delay, cardiorespiratory disturbances). Objective of our proposal is to investigate how expiration (breathing out) and recruitment of expiratory muscles contribute to breathing during the different phases of sleep in both animal models and human infants. We will use state of the art technologies and in vivo physiology to determine involvement of expiration in normal and pathological breathing and we will manipulate respiratory networks in the brain to test the hypothesis that enhancement of expiratory activity ameliorates breathing. Results from our work will be key to determine the contribution of expiration to ventilation in neonatal period in control and in patients affected by sleep disordered breathing. This will build the foundation to develop new approaches to treat sleep disordered breathing in infants that focus on potentiation of forced expiration.