Abstract
All mammals developed effective strategies to cope with reduced oxygen availability or other metabolic, environmental, and behavioral challenges. An important prerequisite for survival is the necessity to maintain functional integrity during times of extreme challenges. Mammals accomplish this task through a highly coordinated, systems- and cellular-level reconfiguration involving the partial shutdown of some but not all organs. This reconfiguration is controlled through a similarly complex reconfiguration at the cellular and network level within the central nervous system. During hypoxic exposure, for example, active cellular networks must continue to control vital functions, such as cardiorespiratory coupling. In this lecture, I will discuss the ability of the cardiorespiratory network to assume multiple states that adapt the organism to continuously changing external and internal conditions.