Brain Activations to Dyspnea in Patients With COPD.

We compared the perception and neural processing of respiratory sensations between 20 COPD patients and 20 healthy controls by means of respiratory-related evoked potentials (RREP) in the electroencephalogram (EEG). RREPs were induced by short inspiratory occlusions while 129-channel EEG was measured. COPD patients rated the occlusions as more intense and unpleasant ('s < 0.001) and showed higher mean amplitudes for the RREP components P1 ( = 0.0004), N1 ( = 0.024), P2 ( = 0.019), and P3 ( = 0.018). Our results indicate that COPD patients demonstrate greater perception and neural processing of respiratory sensations, which presumably reflects the highly aversive and attention-demanding character of these sensations for COPD patients.