Responses to hypoxia during early development.

Sustained hypoxia evokes a predictable cascade of ventilatory, neurochemical, and metabolic responses. Responses in immature animals are characterized by earlier and more marked depression of ventilation than fully mature animals. Ventilation during hypoxia reflects a collective system output, incorporating a number of compensatory mechanisms (stimulation or depression) from multiple systems. The time course of these responses is clearly developmentally regulated. When hypercapnia interacts with hypoxia, the ventilatory responses are enhanced but other responses are apparently unchanged. We propose a model in which responses to intermittent stimuli vary according to the point within the sequence of a single response where the stimulus interruption occurs. An intermittent stimulus may be seen as 'continuous' if the recurrence frequency exceeds a certain threshold, whereas application of slower cycles below such threshold may elicit discordant recruitment of the compensatory responses. Indeed, experimental observations on intermittent (hypercapnic or poikylocapnic) hypoxia show excitatory or depressant effects that are dictated by the cycle duration. Subject to further testing, this model may help explain how detrimental effects of hypoxic events in infancy only affect selected groups.