Hypoxia reveals posterior thalamic, cerebellar, midbrain, and limbic deficits in congenital central hypoventilation syndrome

Congenital central hypoventilation syndrome (CCHS) patients show deficient respiratory and cardiac responses to hypoxia and hypercapnia, despite apparently intact arousal responses to hypercapnia and adequate respiratory motor mechanisms, thus providing a model to evaluate functioning of particular brain mechanisms underlying breathing. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to assess blood oxygen level-dependent signals, corrected for global signal changes, and evaluated them with cluster and volume-of-interest procedures, during a baseline and 2-min hypoxic (15% O(2), 85% N(2)) challenge in 14 CCHS and 14 age- and gender-matched control subjects. Hypoxia elicited significant (P < 0.05) differences in magnitude and timing of responses between groups in cerebellar cortex and deep nuclei, posterior thalamic structures, limbic areas (including the insula, amygdala, ventral anterior thalamus, and right hippocampus), dorsal and ventral midbrain, caudate, claustrum, and putamen. Deficient responses to hypoxia included no, or late, changes in CCHS patients with declining signals in control subjects, a falling signal in CCHS patients with no change in controls, or absent early transient responses in CCHS. Hypoxia resulted in signal declines but no group differences in hypothalamic and dorsal medullary areas, the latter being a target for PHOX2B, mutations of which occur in the syndrome. The findings extend previously identified posterior thalamic, midbrain, and cerebellar roles for normal mediation of hypoxia found in animal fetal and adult preparations and suggest significant participation of limbic structures in responding to hypoxic challenges, which likely include cardiovascular and air-hunger components. Failing structures in CCHS include areas additional to those associated with PHOX2B expression and chemoreceptor sites.