Because mechanical ventilation alters both the periodicity and magnitude of forces on the lung, it has also been sug- gested that mechanotransduction (the conversion of physical forces on the cell membrane/receptors into activation of intra- cellular signal transduction pathways [23, 24]) may play a role in the ventilator-induced lung inflammatory response. Cer- tainly, the importance of lung volume and movement in fetal lung development is well established (25, 26).