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Phrenic motoneurons: output elements of a highly organized intraspinal network
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Phrenic motoneurons: output elements of a highly organized intraspinal network

Michael George Zaki Ghali
Journal of neurophysiology, v 119(3), pp 1057-1070
01 Mar 2018
PMID: 29021393
url
https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.00705.2015View
Published, Version of Record (VoR)Maybe Open Access (Publisher Bronze) Open

Abstract

Animals Humans Models, Neurological Motor Neurons - physiology Neural Pathways - physiology Phrenic Nerve - physiology Respiration
pontomedullary respiratory network generates the respiratory pattern and relays it to bulbar and spinal respiratory motor outputs. The phrenic motor system controlling diaphragm contraction receives and processes descending commands to produce orderly, synchronous, and cycle-to-cycle-reproducible spatiotemporal firing. Multiple investigators have studied phrenic motoneurons (PhMNs) in an attempt to shed light on local mechanisms underlying phrenic pattern formation. I and colleagues (Marchenko V, Ghali MG, Rogers RF. Am J Physiol Regul Integr Comp Physiol 308: R916-R926, 2015.) recorded PhMNs in unanesthetized, decerebrate rats and related their activity to simultaneous phrenic nerve (PhN) activity by creating a time-frequency representation of PhMN-PhN power and coherence. On the basis of their temporal firing patterns and relationship to PhN activity, we categorized PhMNs into three classes, each of which emerges as a result of intrinsic biophysical and network properties and organizes the orderly contraction of diaphragm motor fibers. For example, early inspiratory diaphragmatic activation by the early coherent burst generated by high-frequency PhMNs may be necessary to prime it to overcome its initial inertia. We have also demonstrated the existence of a prominent role for local intraspinal inhibitory mechanisms in shaping phrenic pattern formation. The objective of this review is to relate and synthesize recent findings with those of previous studies with the aim of demonstrating that the phrenic nucleus is a region of active local processing, rather than a passive relay of descending inputs.

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