title: Simultaneous recording of breathing and respiratory related neuronal activity in the brainstem of conscious rats.
abstract: One aim of integrative neurophysiology is to understand the relationship between neuronal activity and normal evolution of other physiological parameters. In this respect, anaesthetics or paralyzing agents, that have been shown to have a significant effect on several vital physiological processes, can be seen as a real problem for the interpretation of observations. Eletrophysiological recording in awake animals avoids this problem. Recordings in forebrain areas are now used routinely but a number of specific difficulties have limited their application to the medullary areas. In this paper, we describe a preparation that allows us to simultaneously record neuronal activity in the dorsal brainstem and respiratory activity in awake rats, while applying different types of respiratory challenges.
authors.affiliation: Department of Physiology, Royal College of Surgeons, 123, St. Stephen's Green, Dublin 2, Ireland.
authors.forename: Franck P
authors.initials: FP
authors.lastname: Martial
authors.forename: Mark
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Dunleavy
authors.forename: Philip
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Nolan
authors.forename: Walter T
authors.initials: WT
authors.lastname: McNicholas
authors.forename: Ronan G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: O'Regan
authors.forename: Aidan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bradford
mesh_terms: D000200:Action Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D000818:Animals; D001933:Brain Stem / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D004566:Electrodes; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*; D010991:Plethysmography / Q000379:methods; D051381:Rats; D012119:Respiration