The objective of the present study was to examine the impact of early stages of lung injury on ventilatory control by hypoxia and hypercapnia. Lung injury was induced with intra-tracheal instillation of bleomycin (BM; 1 unit) in adult, male Sprague-Dawley rats. Control animals underwent sham surgery with saline instillation. Five days after the injections, lung injury was present in BM-treated animals as evidenced by increased neutrophils and protein levels in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, as well as by changes in lung histology and computed tomography images. There was no evidence of pulmonary fibrosis as indicated by lung collagen content. Basal core body temperature, PaO₂ and PaCO₂ were comparable between both groups of animals. Ventilatory responses to hypoxia (12% O₂) and hypercapnia (7% CO₂) were measured by whole-body plethysmography in unanesthetized animals. Baseline respiratory rate and the hypoxic ventilatory response were significantly higher in BM-injected compared to control animals (p=0.003), whereas hypercapnic ventilatory response was not statistically different. In anesthetized, spontaneously breathing animals, response to brief hyperoxia (Dejours' test, an index of peripheral chemoreceptor sensitivity) and neural hypoxic ventilatory response were augmented in BM-exposed relative to control animals as measured by diaphragmatic EMGs. The enhanced hypoxic sensitivity persisted following bilateral vagotomy, but was abolished by bilateral carotid sinus nerve transection. These data demonstrate that afferent sensory input from the carotid body contributes to a selective enhancement of hypoxic ventilatory drive in early lung injury in the absence of pulmonary fibrosis and arterial hypoxemia.