Medullary regions for neurogenesis of gasping: noeud vital or
noeuds vitals.
St., Walter M., John.
Department of Physiology, Dartmouth Medical School, Dartmouth
-Hitchcock Medical Center, Lebanon, New Hampshire, 03756, U.S.A.
APStracts 3:0231A, 1996.
Gasping is a critical mechanism for survival in that it serves as a
mechanism for autoresuscitation when eupnea fails. Eupnea and gasping
are separable patterns of automatic ventilatory activity in all
mammalian species from the day of birth. The neurogenesis of the gasp
is dependent upon the discharge of neurons in the rostroventral
medulla. This gasping center overlaps a region termed the pre
-Botzinger complex. Neuronal activities of this complex, characterized
in an in vitro brainstem spinal cord preparation of the neonatal rat,
have been hypothesized to underlie respiratory rhythm generation.
Yet, the rhythmic activity of this in vitro preparation is markedly
different from eupnea, but identical with gasping in vivo. In eupnea,
medullary neuronal activities generating the gasp and the identical
rhythm of the in vitro preparation are incorporated into a portion of
the ponto-medullary circuit defining eupneic ventilatory activity.
However, these medullary neuronal activities do not appear critical
for the neurogenesis of eupnea, per se.
Received 5 January 1996; accepted in final form 9 April 1996.
APS Manuscript Number A381-6.
Article publication pending Journal of Applied Physiology.
ISSN 1080-4757 Copyright 1996 The American Physiological Society.
Published in APStracts on 8 May 96