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. 2020 Aug;30(4):331-333.
doi: 10.1007/s10286-020-00715-z. Epub 2020 Jul 15.

Is 'happy hypoxia' in COVID-19 a disorder of autonomic interoception? A hypothesis

Alejandra González-Duarte  1 , Lucy Norcliffe-Kaufmann  2
Affiliations

Is 'happy hypoxia' in COVID-19 a disorder of autonomic interoception? A hypothesis

Alejandra González-Duarte et al. Clin Auton Res. 2020 Aug.
No abstract available

Keywords: COVID-19; Dyspnea; Hypoxia; “Happy hypoxemia”.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors of this article have nothing to disclose.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Neurophysiology of dyspnea. Main afferent (sensory) homeostatic information arising from areas of the vasculature and lungs give rise to the sensation of dyspnea. When stimulated, the chemoreceptive and mechanoreceptive signals are transmitted to the brainstem via the glossopharyngeal and vagus nerves, converging at the nucleus of the tractus solitarus (NTS). Subsequent projections continue to the somatosensory cortex and other higher brain regions, which provide the interoceptive sense of the internal environment of the body. The processing of these signals within the cortex gives rise to sensations such as air hunger, dyspnea, or shortness of breath. This interceptive processing appears to be abnormally blunted in patients with coronavirus disease 2019
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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