Stability of the human respiratory control system

Abstract

A number of mathematical models of the human respiratory control system have been developed since 1940 to study a wide range of features of this complex system. Among them, periodic breathing (including Cheyne-Stokes respiration and apneustic breathing) is a collection of regular but involuntary breathing patterns that have important medical implications. The hypothesis that periodic breathing is the result of delay in the feedback signals to the respiratory control system has been studied since the work of Grodins et al. in the early 1950's [12]. The purpose of this paper is to study the stability characteristics of a feedback control system of five differential equations with delays in both the state and control variables presented by Khoo et al. [17] in 1991 for modeling human respiration. The paper is divided in two parts. Part I studies a simplified mathematical model of two nonlinear state equations modeling arterial partial pressures of O2 and CO2 and a peripheral controller. Analysis was done on this model to illuminate the effect of delay on the stability. It shows that delay dependent stability is affected by the controller gain, compartmental volumes and the manner in which changes in the ventilation rate is produced (i.e., by deeper breathing or faster breathing). In addition, numerical simulations were performed to validate analytical results. Part II extends the model in Part I to include both peripheral and central controllers. This, however, necessitates the introduction of a third state equation modeling CO2 levels in the brain. In addition to analytical studies on delay dependent stability, it shows that the decreased cardiac output (and hence increased delay) resulting from the congestive heart condition can induce instability at certain control gain levels. These analytical results were also confirmed by numerical simulations.