ABSTRACT

This review concerns the genetic, non-environmental factors that influence normal variations in ventilation and/or its components, frequency and tidal volume. The question of ‘is there a genetic effect?’ is now answered a number of times in both human studies and rodent models, and there is moderate evidence to suspect that specific gene regions operate in determining the apnea-hypopnea index, a defining value for human sleep apnea. There is the best evidence in animal models to the address questions of ‘how strong is the genetic component?’ and ‘what genes might be involved?’ There is consensus regarding the collection of phenotype values for frequency and tidal volume and the response to chemosensory challenges, and qualitative and quantitative differences exist among rodent strains in both steady-state and transient changes in these traits to chemosensory challenge. Some gene regions could be interesting in regard to explaining the risk of progression or of severity of diseases in which disorders of ventilatory control operate to produce hypoxic complications. Computational analyses of datasets and breeding of animals offer

opportunity to create a functional map of the connections between genes and ventilatory behavior.