The effect of proportional assist ventilation on the electrical activity of the human diaphragm during exercise

Abstract We hypothesized that when a proportional assist ventilator (PAV) is applied in order to reduce the pressure generated by the diaphragm, there would be a corresponding reduction in electrical activity of the diaphragm. Healthy participants (five male and four female) completed an incremental cycle exercise test to exhaustion in order to calculate workloads for subsequent trials. On the experimental day, participants performed submaximal cycling, and three levels of assisted ventilation were applied (low, medium and high). Ventilatory parameters, pulmonary pressures and EMG of the diaphragm (EMGdi) were obtained. To compare the PAV conditions with spontaneous breathing intervals, ANOVA procedures were used, and significant effects were evaluated with a Tukey–Kramer test. Significance was set at P