No Evidence for Modulation of the Readiness Potential by Respiratory Phase During Natural Breathing

Authors

• Lucas Jeay-Bizot, Chapman UniversityFollow
• Raniyah Chisti, Chapman University
• Uri Maoz, Chapman UniversityFollow
• Aaron Schurger, Chapman UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2-2026

Abstract

Respiratory processes are increasingly implicated in shaping neural activity and behavior. Recent studies have reported a coupling between respiratory phase and the cortical readiness potential (RP), suggesting that breathing may modulate the neural processes preceding voluntary action. Here, using electroencephalography recordings in humans, we re-examine this claim using the original dataset and a new independent dataset, as well as in simulated data with no coupling. We show that the reported association arises from a confound: both RP amplitude and respiratory phase are coupled to movement onset. The original analysis does not control for this dependency, leading to a spurious effect that is also observed in simulated data. When trials are instead grouped by respiratory phase at the time of movement, thereby controlling for this confound, the apparent coupling disappears. Across datasets, Bayesian analyses provide evidence for the absence of an effect under natural breathing conditions. These findings indicate that respiratory phase does not directly modulate RP amplitude during spontaneous behavior. More broadly, they reveal a shortcoming of phase-amplitude coupling analyses applied to epoched data with slowly varying signals, and highlight the importance of controlling for shared dependencies when interpreting physiological–neural relationships.

Comments

This article was originally published in PLoS Biology, volume 24, issue 9, in 2026. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003982

This article was the recipient of a Chapman University Supporting Open Access Research and Scholarship (SOARS) award.

Recommended Citation

Jeay-Bizot L, Chishti R, Maoz U, Schurger A (2026) No evidence for modulation of the readiness potential by respiratory phase during natural breathing. PLoS Biol 24(9): e3003982. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003982

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.