Assessing central autonomic network function using a respiratory control task

Motivation: There is growing demand for fMRI tasks that probe the central autonomic network (CAN). Respiratory tasks (RTs) are promising but understudied in this role, due to confounding effects of CO2-related cerebrovascular reactivity. Goal(s): To evaluate the utility of RTs in CAN assessment after correcting for CO2-related effects, by measuring sensitivity and reliability of fMRI signal in key CAN regions. Approach: We collected fMRI data from 72 adults while they performed an RT. After respiratory volume-based corrections, we assessed CAN peak response, intraclass correlation, and effect of physiological processing model. Results: The RT evoked significant, reliable activation in CAN regions. Impact: This study assessed the viability of RTs in measuring autonomic function and CAN-related activity. This included assessments of task sensitivity and reliability, which support the use of this paradigm to evaluate autonomic function in healthy and clinical cohorts.