Cardiorespiratory Control: Hypnosis and Perceived Exertion

Abstract

It is rare that one individual can be recognized as a primary force in establishing a new avenue of inquiry in the psychobiological sciences. William P. Morgan is such a person. He dared to merge clinical psychological concepts with neurophysiological findings and stimulated investigations into how an individual's perception of effort performance affected their cardiorespirtory response. Additionally, he developed and validated a prediction model of successful performance of stressful activities based upon an individual's state of clinical anxiety. Thirty years after his initial psycho-physical investigation, in which he and Raven employed hypnotic suggestion to alter an individual's cardiorespiratory response to exercise, the advent of high resolution brain imaging enabled Williamson, Mitchell, Raven, and Morgan to identify specific cortical structures involved in the neural control of the cardiorespiratory system. The outcome of this work has expanded the vision of investigators involved in examining the neurophysiological mechanisms associated with exercise performance.

Keywords:

• neural control
• exercise
• human