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1 Sleep Research Laboratory, John D. Dingell Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Division of Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine, Department of Internal Medicine, and 2 Division of Reproductive Endocrinology and Infertility, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, Michigan 48201
The hypocapnic apneic
threshold (AT) is lower in women relative to men. To test the
hypothesis that the gender difference in AT was due to testosterone, we
determined the AT during non-rapid eye movement sleep in eight healthy,
nonsnoring, premenopausal women before and after 10-12 days of
transdermal testosterone. Hypocapnia was induced via nasal mechanical
ventilation (MV) for 3 min with tidal volumes ranging from 175 to 215%
above eupneic tidal volume and respiratory frequency matched to eupneic
frequency. Cessation of MV resulted in hypocapnic central apnea or
hypopnea depending on the magnitude of hypocapnia. Nadir minute
ventilation as a percentage of control (%
E) was
plotted against the change in end-tidal CO2
(PETCO2); %
E was given
a value of zero during central apnea. The AT was defined as the
PETCO2 at which the apnea closest to the
last hypopnea occurred; hypocapnic ventilatory response (HPVR) was
defined as the slope of the linear regression
E vs.
PETCO2. Both the AT (39.5 ± 2.9 vs.
42.1 ± 3.0 Torr; P = 0.002) and HPVR (0.20 ± 0.05 vs. 0.33 ± 0.11%
E/Torr;
P = 0.016) increased with testosterone
administration. We conclude that testosterone administration
increases AT in premenopausal women, suggesting that the increased
breathing instability during sleep in men is related to the presence of testosterone.
control of breathing; hypocapnia; gender
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