Neuro-Respiratory and Mechanical Ventilation Methodologies for Exploring Human Cognitive Overload

This paper explores the deep understanding of the respiration system in the human body for the purpose of improving the design of mechanical ventilators used in intensive care units and improving the research about human operators cognitive overload challenges. We discuss the neuro-physiological and cardio-physiological mechanism of respiration. We describe the two respiration processes. The first process is the external respiration or “ventilation,” which is the uptake of oxygen and excretion of carbon dioxide in the lungs. The second process is the internal respiration or “gas exchange” between the pulmonary alveolus and the blood. Then, we discuss the mechanical ventilation methods and the human-ventilator synchrony problem. The results of this research provide insights about deep understanding for the mechanism of the ventilation and gas exchange in the normal respiration process and help with designing a reliable mechanical ventilation able to achieve the synchronization between the mechanical ventilation unit and the patient's efforts for breathing in an intensive care unit. This research also provides additional insights to human operators cognitive overload challenges in human-machine teaming applications such as pilots of autonomous systems.