Information systems approach to integrated responses in the respiratory control system.

The appropriateness of integrated information systems to the description of integrated biological systems is discussed. An integrated information system in the physiology of the regulation of respiration is argued to be a structural mathematical model of the system and the relational data base, which it can compute. In contrast to the customary method of applying nonspecific statistical or control system formulations to data, the model-data base combination attempts to produce insight by reproducing from a single formulation many sets of experimentally validated data. The model then may predict results for experiments not yet done. An information system (thus defined) has both explanatory power and heuristic value.