Dopamine and norepinephrine levels in deep human brain regions, including the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, and hippocampus, fluctuate in synchrony with the respiratory cycle.
"One is recording from the amygdala, anterior cingulate cortex, or the hippocampus while people are doing structured breathing... Norepinephrine and dopamine cycle with the breathing cycle." (said at 1:41:11)
The speaker conflates electrophysiological oscillations with direct monoamine neurotransmitter fluctuation. Published human intracranial EEG studies (such as Zelano et al., 2016) demonstrated that nasal respiration entrains local field potential (electrical) oscillations in human limbic structures, including the amygdala and hippocampus, with oscillatory power peaking during inspiration. However, these human intracranial recordings measure electrical potentials (iEEG/LFP), not sub-second extracellular fluctuations of dopamine and norepinephrine levels cycling with the breath.
- partial: Nasal Respiration Entrains Human Limbic Oscillations and Modulates Cognitive Function. (The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 2016)
"Our results reveal that natural breathing synchronizes electrical activity in human piriform (olfactory) cortex, as well as in limbic-related brain areas, including amygdala and hippocampus." (abstract, results, passage verified)
pubmedfull study (doi)