Swallowing and Breathing Relationship: General Knowledge

Cemil Yılmaz
Abstract

There is a close association between swallowing and breathing.  Both swallowing and breathing are regulated by the similar oromotor CPGs that are in the close proximity in the same brain region. They also use similar neural pathways and similar oral-pharyngeal structures. These features generate an obligatory coordination between swallowing and breathing. Swallowing and breathing coordination begin to build up with sucking in newborns. Generally used swallowing-breathing pattern after 1 year of age develops into breath out-swallow-breath out or breath in-swallow-breath out patterns. The dominant swallowing pattern established in adults is breath out-swallow-breath out pattern which is seen close to 100%. This swallowing-breathing pattern is considered to have certain advantageous over other patterns such as decreasing the aspiration-penetration risk to a minimum during swallowing. Relying on the close relation between swallowing and breathing, it’s assumed that a breathing disorder can interrupt swallowing-breathing coordination and consequently swallowing could be disturbed. Supraglottic and super-supraglottic swallowing maneuvers used in deglutition disorders are exclusively depending on the swallowing-breathing relation and requiring a breathing out after the swallow. This review is consisted of 3 sections. CPGs are explained in the first section. CPGs are the neural mechanisms regulating swallowing-breathing relation and also other rhytmic events such as chewing, walking, running, swimming. Oromotor CPGs are a group of CPGs that regulate breathing, sucking, chewing, swallowing and coughing. Sucking is considered as an important biomarker for the development of other oromotor events. Oromotor CPGs are localized in the brain stem and receive feedback from the central and peripheral nervous systems. The second section is about the development of swallowing-breathing mechanism so that swallowing-breathing mechanism of newborns and infants are reviewed. Swallowing-breathing relation must be healthy for newborns and infants, otherwise serious health problems such as recurrent aspiration pneumonia could come out.  There are various swallowing-breathing patterns seen in newborns and infants. Several of these swallowing-breathing patterns are assumed to be pathological. For example, if swallowing disturbs the breathing cycle or swallowing happens as breathing is ceased then these swallowing-breathing patterns are considered to be pathological. However, breath out-swallow-breath out and breath in-swallow-breath out patterns are considered as the ideal swallowing-breathing patterns. In newborns it was observed that the most frequent swallowing-breathing pattern is the breath in-swallow-breath out pattern. Sucking-swallowing coordination is also observed to be more rhytmic than swallowing-breathing coordination in the early stages of newborns. This state highlights the importance of sucking. Because swallowing and breathing coordination is also regulated by similar oromotor CPGs as in the case of sucking. As infants are observed through 1 year of age, two swallowing patterns of breath in-swallow-breath out and breath out-swallow-breath out were observed to be more frequent. Also the frequency of wake swallows were seen to decrease at the end of 1 year age. These are the markers for the development of swallowing-breathing relation in infants. Problems such as preterm births could distrupt the healthy swallowing-breathing development. The swallowing-breathing relation of the adults are explained in the last section. In adults there is a dominant swallowing-breathing pattern which is breath out-swallow-breath out. This dominant swallowing-breathing pattern is evaluated to posses several mechanical advantages over other patterns in relation to decrease aspiration and penetration possibility. Swallowing-breathing relation is evaluated through the length of swallowing apnea period. Swallowing apnea period is affected by type and volume of the bolus.



Keywords

swallowing, breathing, CPGs - central pattern generators, swallowing-breathing pattern, swallowing apnea


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