Buccal pumping is a method of respiration using the throat muscles. Animals using this method will typically move the floor of the mouth or throat in a rhythmic manner that is externally apparent.
This method has several stages. These will be described for an animal starting with lungs in a deflated state: First, the glottis (opening to the lungs) is closed, and the nostrils are opened. The floor of the mouth is then depressed (lowered), drawing air in. The nostrils are then closed, the glottis opened, and the floor of mouth raised, forcing the air into the lungs. To deflate the lungs, the process is reversed.
This method of ventilation is inefficient, but is nontheless used by all air-breathing amphibians and is utilized to a varying extent by various reptile species. Mammals, in contrast, use the diaphragm to inflate and deflate the lungs more directly.
Buccalpumping is used by these breath-hold divers to increase pre-dive lung volume and thereby supposedly also the theoretical diving depth.
During buccalpumping the pulse pressure is dramatically reduced and the systolic pressure is gradually falling (Table 2, Fig.
One should also bear in mind that the levels of buccalpumping performed by the subjects in this study were not maximal since avoidance of syncope was pursued and it was a demanding protocol with several repetitions.
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