Medullary regions for neurogenesis of gasping: noeud vital or noeuds vitals?

Abstract

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 on the discharge of neurons in the rostroventral medulla. This gasping center overlaps a region termed "the pre-Bötzinger complex." Neuronal activities of this complex, characterized in an in vitro brain stem 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 pontomedullary circuit defining eupneic ventilatory activity. However, these medullary neuronal activities do not appear critical for the neurogenesis of eupnea, per se.