---
title: Understand brain control of breathing
nct_id: NCT06074614
status: RECRUITING
sponsor: Radboud University Medical Center
study_type: OBSERVATIONAL
canonical_url: "https://parkinsonspathways.com/trial/NCT06074614"
clinicaltrials_gov: "https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06074614"
last_fetched: "2026-05-10T14:04:18.516Z"
source: "Parkinson's Pathways (curated)"
---
# Understand brain control of breathing

**Goal (in five words):** Understand brain control of breathing

**Official Title:** Neural Control of Breathing in Parkinson's Disease: an Exploratory Study

**Trial ID:** [NCT06074614](https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06074614)

## Key Facts

- **Status:** RECRUITING
- **Study Type:** OBSERVATIONAL
- **Sponsor:** Radboud University Medical Center
- **Target Enrollment:** 30 participants
- **Start Date:** 2023-10-30
- **Completion Date:** 2025-05
- **Conditions:** Parkinson Disease
- **Interventions:** Hypercapnic ventilatory response, Respiratory related evoked potential, Transcranial magnetic stimulation
- **Intervention Types:** DIAGNOSTIC_TEST

## Summary For Families

The goal is to learn how Parkinson's affects the brain's control of breathing, which can help explain symptoms like a blunted response to rising carbon dioxide, cough or swallow problems, and breathlessness. The team will raise CO2 briefly to measure ventilatory drive, record electrical brain responses to breathing loads with respiratory related evoked potentials, and use noninvasive transcranial magnetic stimulation to activate motor brain areas and test how well respiratory pathways respond. Adults 18 and older are eligible, including people with Parkinson's at Hoehn and Yahr stages 1 to 3 and healthy volunteers, while people with other CNS diseases, major lung disease, implanted electronic or certain metal head devices, pregnancy, smoking, epilepsy or prior brain surgery are excluded.

## Eligibility

- **Minimum age:** 18 Years
- **Sex:** ALL

### Full Criteria

```
Inclusion Criteria:

* Healthy subjects: competent adult (\>18 years) volunteers
* Patients: adult (\<18 years) patients with Parkinson's disease, clinically confirmed by a movement disorder specialised neurologist with Hoehn and Yahr staging 1 to 3
* Willingness and ability to understand nature and content of the study
* Ability to participate and comply with study requirements

Exclusion Criteria:

* Healthy subjects: previous or ongoing diseases of the central nervous system
* Patients: previous or ongoing diseases of the central nervous system, other than Parkinson's disease
* History of or current psychiatric treatment
* History of or current brain surgery or epilepsy, unclusing deep brain stimulation
* Neuromuscular disorders
* Pre-existing pulmonary disease, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma or pulmonary fibrosis
* TMS incompatibility (metal parts in head or neck, skin allergies)
* Implanted cardiac pacemaker or defibrillator, neurostimulator, cochlear implant or medical infusion device
* Large or ferromagnetic metal parts in the head (exept for a dental wire)
* Pregnancy
* Smoking
```

## Locations (1)

- Radboudumc, Nijmegen, Gelderland, Netherlands _(51.8425, 5.8528)_
  - Jonne Doorduin, PhD — (CONTACT) — +31650155757 — jonne.doorduin@radboudumc.nl

## Central Contacts

- Jonne Doorduin, PhD — (CONTACT) — +31243611111 — jonne.doorduin@radboudumc.nl

---

*Canonical: https://parkinsonspathways.com/trial/NCT06074614*  
*HTML version: https://parkinsonspathways.com/trial/NCT06074614*  
*Source data: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT06074614*