A computer program for quantitating data related to central control of respiration

✍ Scribed by Chan F Lam; H.T Carter; Sidney Katz

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1974
• Weight: 526 KB
• Volume: 4
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0010-468X
• DOI: 10.1016/0010-468x(74)90007-5

✦ Synopsis

The genesis of the rhythmicity of the respiratory center has been widely studied. However, there has been little investigation of the effects on the respiratory center of diverse physiological states. A computer program has been written in an attempt to quantify some of the characteristics of the medullary respiratory control neurons (e.g., peak frequency, burst duration, interburst interval, time to peak frequency, and number of spikes per burst), and the associated changes in breathing pattern (i.e., respiratory rate, peak inspiratory and expiratory air flow rates, and tidal volume) in response to inputs producing a known reflex change in respiration. The computerized determination of this data has made it possible to help meet the objective of correlating the activity of single medullary respiratory neurons with breathing pattern. The program described in this paper utilizes the time intervals between extraceUularly recorded action potentials from single medullary respiratory neurons and the associated ventilatory responses mentioned above. The means by which this data is processed are described. A discussion is presented of the problems related to performing the data reduction prior to statistical correlation of the neuron and ventilation variables

Neurophysiology

Spike train analysis respiration PDP-12