Breathtaking Science

Biologists home in on the brain area that drives respiration

Nearly 2,400 years ago in a treatise aptly titled “On Breath,” Aristotle posed a question that continues to captivate scientists today: “How can we account for the maintenance of the breath inherent in us, and for its increase?” In a suburb just outside Washington, D.C., Jeffrey C. Smith shows just how close modern researchers are to answering that question.