Furthermore, this is also correlated with an increase of hydrogen ions in the cerebrospinal fluid. These changes are quickly detected by the chemoreceptors, but not in an equal fashion. The central chemoreceptor is highly sensitive to a rise in carbon dioxide because it freely diffuses across the blood-brain barrier. Here, a feedback loop is induced where the central chemoreceptor sends signals to the medullary respiratory group. As a result the dorsal respiratory group receives the signal from the apneustic center to fire rapid rates of action potential. This homeostatic mechanism increases respiratory drive, which aimed to increase oxygen levels and counteract the high carbon dioxide through increase acts of expiration. As for the peripheral chemoreceptors, it detects the rise of carbon dioxide in the plasma concentration of the arterial blood, but the response is less significant. Furthermore, the peripheral chemoreceptors are less sensitive to changes in pH levels (O’Regan et al, …show more content…
The hypothesis for this exercise was that the volume of air and respiratory rate would rise as a response to an increase of exercise workload. This is known as hyperpnoea, often considered as the respiratory system’s response during moderate to strenuous exercise. Figure 6 is minute ventilation, which reflected the test subject’s air volume inspiration per minute in response to the exercise workload. The dip in workload 1.5 was attributed to a human error where the rate of pedaling decreased, thus failing to maintain a rise in respiration. Subsequently, the results from Figure 6 support a specific case study involving a similar experiment done on ventilation rate in response to exercise workload. The test subject used for their experiment was also a young male. Here, researchers discovered a linear upward relationship between ventilation rate and exercise intensities. Furthermore, their data showed an increase in oxygen consumption in response to exercise intensities, therefore also supporting the physiological reasoning behind an increase in tidal volume (Burton et al, 2004,