Health and medicine: Central chemoreceptors

Find out how the your body uses special cells that are central to the brain (inside the brain) to sense levels of CO2 and pH. Rishi is a pediatric infectious disease physician and works at Khan Academy. These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any Khan Academy video.

Health and medicine

The medical world can be a confusing place. Patients, their families, and even students entering health fields might feel overwhelmed by the large vocabularies and complicated explanations. We hope to make understanding the medical world a bit easier. Look around! These videos do not provide medical advice and are for informational purposes only. The videos are not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of a qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you have read or seen in any Khan Academy video.

Breathing Control

Luckily, we can breathe without thinking which means that we have autonomic control of breathing. If we couldn’t, we would risk dying if we went to sleep (look up Ondine’s curse)! There are times when the body wants more oxygen (like during heavy exercise), and when the body wants less (like when we’re resting). How does our body automatically seem to know when to inhale more, and when to inhale less? Also, if we do have autonomic control of breathing, how is it possible to also have conscious control of our breathing? These questions get to the fundamentals of breathing control.

Topic: Science

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