Impaired CO2-Induced Arousal in SIDS and SUDEP.

Premature, sudden death is devastating. Certain patient populations are at greater risk to succumb to sudden death. For instance, infants under 1year of age are at risk for sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and patients with epilepsy are at risk for sudden unexpected death in epilepsy (SUDEP). Deaths are attributed to these syndromic entities in these select populations when other diagnoses have been excluded. There are a number of similarities between these syndromes, and the commonalities suggest that the two syndromes may share certain etiological features. One such feature may be deficiency of arousal to CO2. Under normal conditions, CO2 is a potent arousal stimulus. Circumstances surrounding SIDS and SUDEP deaths often facilitate CO2 elevation, and faulty CO2 arousal mechanisms could, at least in part, contribute to death.