Psychosomatic Medicine, Vol 46, Issue 4 333-345, Copyright © 1984 by American Psychosomatic Society

ORIGINAL ARTICLES

Ventilatory response to CO2. I. A psychobiologic marker of the respiratory system

BS Singh

When a gas mixture containing CO2 is breathed by a healthy subject, alveolar ventilation is increased. The ratio delta ventilation/delta PCO2 has been termed the ventilatory response to CO2 (S). Since the development of a rebreathing method in 1967, it has proved easy to measure this index of the regulation of ventilation. This index, although showing considerable interindividual variation (range, 0.5-9 liters/min/mm PCO2), tends to be consistent over time for any given individual. Positive correlations between S and personality traits such as anxiety, extroversion, and aggression and negative correlations between S and certain scales of the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI: depression, psychopathology, psychasthenia, and social introversion) have been found in previous studies. It was hypothesized that S may be a psychobiologic marker of the respiratory system. A project in which 82 normal subjects (50 male, 32 female) were studied with both psychologic (Eysenck Personality Inventory, Catell 16PF, and 168-item MMPI) and rebreathing tests was undertaken to investigate this possibility further. A strong correlation between S and neurotic personality traits was found, but this correlation appeared valid only in female subjects.

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. W. Woods, D. S. Charney, J. Loke, W. K. Goodman, D. E. Redmond Jr, and G. R. Heninger Carbon Dioxide Sensitivity in Panic Anxiety: Ventilatory and Anxiogenic Response to Carbon Dioxide in Healthy Subjects and Patients With Panic Anxiety Before and After Alprazolam Treatment Arch Gen Psychiatry, September 1, 1986; 43(9): 900 - 909. [Abstract] [PDF]