Model Fitting and Simulation of the Respiratory Control System under Incremental Exercise and Altitude in Healthy Subjects

The modeling and simulation of the respiratory control system allows a better understanding of the physiological system to different stimuli and pathologies. Although different models have been validated under different situations, it is unusual to perform a fitting of their parameters based on environmental characteristics such as altitude, which can significantly affect the accuracy of the simulation results. The purpose of this work is to fit the respiratory control model proposed by Fincham and Tehrani with experimental data obtained under exercise. The experimental test include carbon dioxide production between 0.4 and 2.5 l / min at an altitude of 1538 m above sea level. The variables compared between simulation without fitting and with fitting regarding experimental data were total minute ventilation, arterial partial pressure of oxygen, arterial partial pressure of carbon dioxide and Frequency of breathing. The results evidence the altitude as a stimulus that should be considered in simulations of respiratory models in order to obtain more accurate results.