CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 157Free Will and AgencyMotor Control and AdaptationNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

Breathing is coupled with voluntary action and the cortical readiness potential

Open access
Park, Hyeong-Dong, Barnoud, Coline, Trang, Henri, Kannape, Oliver A., Schaller, Karl, Blanke, Olaf·2020·Nature Communications
DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-13967-9PMC PMC7005287
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

Voluntary action is a fundamental element of self-consciousness. The readiness potential (RP), a slow drift of neural activity preceding self-initiated movement, has been suggested to reflect neural processes underlying the preparation of voluntary action; yet more than fifty years after its introduction, interpretation of the RP remains controversial. Based on previous research showing that internal bodily signals affect sensory processing and ongoing neural activity, we here investigated the potential role of interoceptive signals in voluntary action and the RP. We report that (1) participants initiate voluntary actions more frequently during expiration, (2) this respiration-action coupling is absent during externally triggered actions, and (3) the RP amplitude is modulated depending on the respiratory phase. Our findings demonstrate that voluntary action is coupled with the respiratory system and further suggest that the RP is associated with fluctuations of ongoing neural activity that are driven by the involuntary and cyclic motor act of breathing.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1038/s41467-019-13967-9

Cites

4 of 4 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The finding that action is facilitated during systole compared to diastole is not consistent across studies.

    “but again this finding is not consistent across studies 74,75 .”

    From Interoceptive rhythms in the brain (2023) · cites this paper as [75]

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 38

  1. [1]Fried I Mukamel R Kreiman G Internally generated preactivation of single neurons in human medial frontal cortex predicts volition Neuron 2011 69 548 562 10.1016/j.neuron.2010.11.045 21315264 PMC3052770 · DOI
  2. [2]Haggard P Human volition: towards a neuroscience of will Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 2008 9 934 946 10.1038/nrn2497 19020512 · DOI · Paper page
  3. [3]Kornhuber HH Deecke L Changes in brain potentials with willful and passive movements in humans: the readiness potential and reafferent potentials Pflug. Arch. 1965 284 1 17 10.1007/BF00412364 14341490 · DOI
  4. [4]Murakami M Vicente MI Costa GM Mainen ZF Neural antecedents of self-initiated actions in secondary motor cortex Nat. Neurosci. 2014 17 1574 1582 10.1038/nn.3826 25262496 · DOI
  5. [5]Libet B Gleason CA Wright EW Pearl DK Time of conscious intention to act in relation to onset of cerebral activity (readiness-potential). The unconscious initiation of a freely voluntary act Brain 1983 106 623 642 10.1093/brain/106.3.623 6640273 · DOI · Paper page
  6. [7]Khalighinejad N Schurger A Desantis A Zmigrod L Haggard P Precursor processes of human self-initiated action NeuroImage 2018 165 35 47 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.09.057 28966084 PMC5737384 · DOI
  7. [8]Schurger A Mylopoulos M Rosenthal D Neural antecedents of spontaneous voluntary movement. a new perspective Trends Cogn. Sci. 2016 20 77 79 10.1016/j.tics.2015.11.003 26706686 · DOI
  8. [9]Schurger A Sitt JD Dehaene S An accumulator model for spontaneous neural activity prior to self-initiated movement Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 2012 109 E2904 E2913 10.1073/pnas.1210467109 22869750 PMC3479453 · DOI
  9. [10]Park HD Correia S Ducorps A Tallon-Baudry C Spontaneous fluctuations in neural responses to heartbeats predict visual detection Nat. Neurosci. 2014 17 612 618 10.1038/nn.3671 24609466 · DOI · Paper page
  10. [12]Ohl S Wohltat C Kliegl R Pollatos O Engbert R Microsaccades are coupled to heartbeat J. Neurosci. 2016 36 1237 1241 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2211-15.2016 26818511 PMC6604821 · DOI · Paper page
  11. [13]Park HD Neural sources and underlying mechanisms of neural responses to heartbeats, and their role in bodily self-consciousness: an intracranial EEG study Cereb. Cortex 2018 28 2351 2364 10.1093/cercor/bhx136 28591822 · DOI · Paper page
  12. [15]Tort ABL Brankack J Draguhn A Respiration-entrained brain rhythms are global but often overlooked Trends Neurosci. 2018 41 186 197 10.1016/j.tins.2018.01.007 29429805 · DOI · Paper page
  13. [16]Birn RM Murphy K Bandettini PA The effect of respiration variations on independent component analysis results of resting state functional connectivity Hum. Brain Mapp. 2008 29 740 750 10.1002/hbm.20577 18438886 PMC2715870 · DOI · Paper page
  14. [17]Evans KC Shea SA Saykin AJ Functional MRI localisation of central nervous system regions associated with volitional inspiration in humans J. Physiol. 1999 520 383 392 10.1111/j.1469-7793.1999.00383.x 10523407 PMC2269603 · DOI
  15. [18]Bramble DM Carrier DR Running and breathing in mammals Science 1983 219 251 256 10.1126/science.6849136 6849136 · DOI
  16. [19]Moore JD Hierarchy of orofacial rhythms revealed through whisking and breathing Nature 2013 497 205 210 10.1038/nature12076 23624373 PMC4159559 · DOI
  17. [20]Pfurtscheller G Ortner R Bauernfeind G Linortner P Neuper C Does conscious intention to perform a motor act depend on slow cardiovascular rhythms? Neurosci. Lett. 2010 468 46 50 10.1016/j.neulet.2009.10.060 19861147 · DOI
  18. [21]Ball T The role of higher-order motor areas in voluntary movement as revealed by high-resolution EEG and fMRI NeuroImage 1999 10 682 694 10.1006/nimg.1999.0507 10600414 · DOI
  19. [22]Azevedo RT Garfinkel SN Critchley HD Tsakiris M Cardiac afferent activity modulates the expression of racial stereotypes Nat. Commun. 2017 8 13854 10.1038/ncomms13854 28094772 PMC5247580 · DOI · Paper page
  20. [23]Kurnikova A Moore JD Liao SM Deschenes M Kleinfeld D Coordination of orofacial motor actions into exploratory behavior by rat Curr. Biol. 2017 27 688 696 10.1016/j.cub.2017.01.013 28216320 PMC5653531 · DOI
  21. [24]Zelano C Nasal respiration entrains human limbic oscillations and modulates cognitive function J. Neurosci. 2016 36 12448 12467 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2586-16.2016 27927961 PMC5148230 · DOI · Paper page
  22. [25]Mitrou N Laurin A Dick T Inskip J A peak detection method for identifying phase in physiological signals Biomed. Signal Process. Control 2017 31 452 462 10.1016/j.bspc.2016.07.001 · DOI
  23. [26]Mineva A Popivanov D Method for single-trial readiness potential identification, based on singular spectrum analysis J. Neurosci. Methods 1996 68 91 99 10.1016/0165-0270(96)00012-X 8884618 · DOI
  24. [27]Richter CG Babo-Rebelo M Schwartz D Tallon-Baudry C Phase-amplitude coupling at the organism level: the amplitude of spontaneous alpha rhythm fluctuations varies with the phase of the infra-slow gastric basal rhythm NeuroImage 2017 146 951 958 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2016.08.043 27557620 PMC5312779 · DOI · Paper page
  25. [28]Tort AB Komorowski R Eichenbaum H Kopell N Measuring phase-amplitude coupling between neuronal oscillations of different frequencies J. Neurophysiol. 2010 104 1195 1210 10.1152/jn.00106.2010 20463205 PMC2941206 · DOI
  26. [29]Smotherman M Kobayasi K Ma J Zhang S Metzner W A mechanism for vocal-respiratory coupling in the mammalian parabrachial nucleus J. Neurosci. 2006 26 4860 4869 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.4607-05.2006 16672660 PMC6674146 · DOI
  27. [30]Paydarfar D Gilbert RJ Poppel CS Nassab PF Respiratory phase resetting and airflow changes induced by swallowing in humans J. Physiol. 1995 483 273 288 10.1113/jphysiol.1995.sp020584 7776238 PMC1157888 · DOI
  28. [31]Raux M Electroencephalographic evidence for pre-motor cortex activation during inspiratory loading in humans J. Physiol. 2007 578 569 578 10.1113/jphysiol.2006.120246 17110415 PMC2075143 · DOI
  29. [33]Allard E Interferences between breathing, experimental dyspnoea and bodily self-consciousness Sci. Rep. 2017 7 9990 10.1038/s41598-017-11045-y 28855723 PMC5577140 · DOI
  30. [34]Morawiec E Raux M Kindler F Laviolette L Similowski T Expiratory load compensation is associated with electroencephalographic premotor potentials in humans J. Appl. Physiol. 2015 118 1023 1030 10.1152/japplphysiol.00201.2014 25663669 · DOI
  31. [35]McFarland DH Respiratory markers of conversational interaction J. Speech Lang. Hear. Res. 2001 44 128 143 10.1044/1092-4388(2001/012) 11218097 · DOI
  32. [36]Faull OK Subramanian HH Ezra M Pattinson KTS The midbrain periaqueductal gray as an integrative and interoceptive neural structure for breathing Neurosci. Biobehav. Rev. 2019 98 135 144 10.1016/j.neubiorev.2018.12.020 30611797 · DOI
  33. [37]Baek K Impaired awareness of motor intention in functional neurological disorder: implications for voluntary and functional movement Psychol. Med. 2017 47 1624 1636 10.1017/S0033291717000071 28183377 PMC5964459 · DOI · Paper page
  34. [38]Oostenveld R Fries P Maris E Schoffelen JM FieldTrip: open source software for advanced analysis of MEG, EEG, and invasive electrophysiological data Comput. Intell. Neurosci. 2011 2011 156869 10.1155/2011/156869 21253357 PMC3021840 · DOI · Paper page
  35. [39]Garipelli G., Chavarriaga R., Millan J. D. Single trial recognition of anticipatory slow cortical potentials: the role of spatio-spectral filtering. 5th International Ieee/Embs Conference on Neural Engineering, 408–411 (2011).
  36. [40]Schultze-Kraft M The point of no return in vetoing self-initiated movements Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 2016 113 1080 1085 10.1073/pnas.1513569112 26668390 PMC4743787 · DOI
  37. [41]Ajne B A simple test for uniformity of a circular distribution Biometrika 1968 55 343 354 10.1093/biomet/55.2.343 · DOI
  38. [42]Berens P CircStat: A MATLAB toolbox for circular statistics J. Stat. Softw. 2009 31 1 21 10.18637/jss.v031.i10 · DOI · Paper page

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Park, H.-D., Barnoud, C., Trang, H., Kannape, O. A., Schaller, K., & Blanke, O.
Affiliations
  • Board of the Swiss Federal Institutes of Technology (CH)
  • École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (CH)
  • University of Geneva (CH)
Corresponding author
  • Park, Hyeong-Dong
  • Blanke, Olaf
ORCID
Venue
Nature Communications
Publisher
Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Published
2020-02-06
Volume
11
Issue
1
Pages
289-289
ISSN
2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.1038/s41467-019-13967-9
PMC
PMC7005287
OpenAlex
W3004903909
Cited by
157
References
4
Citations by year
2026: 30 · 2025: 33 · 2024: 18 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 19 · 2021: 28 · 2020: 9 · 2018: 1
FWCI
10.08
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Nature Communications (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
  • Infoscience (Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
  • RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
  • Taipei Medical University Repository (submittedVersion)
  • Archive ouverte UNIGE (University of Geneva) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
Funders
  • Fondation Bertarelli
  • Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (320030_182497)
  • Pictet Foundation
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Free Will and Agency
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Motor Control and Adaptation
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
readiness potential, voluntary action, respiration, interoception, expiration, self-initiated movement, respiratory phase, self-consciousness, motor preparation
MeSH terms
Adult, Brain, Brain Chemistry, Contingent Negative Variation, Electroencephalography, Female, Humans, Male, Respiration, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review