Rostral pontile mechanisms regulate durations of expiratory phases

Neural expiration can be divided into two phases. Phase I corresponds to the period of laryngeal adduction, whereas many spinal nerves reach peak discharge in phase II. The present studies evaluated the hypothesis that rostral pontile mechanisms contribute to determining the time of onset of spinal motoneuronal activities in phase II. In decerebrate and paralyzed cats, efferent activities were recorded from the phrenic nerve and from single fibers of the branch of the intercostal nerve innervating the triangularis sterni muscle. These activities were recorded in eupnea and apneusis; the latter was produced by cooling the rostral pons by a fork thermode. In eupnea, there was a delay between the rapid decline of phrenic discharge from peak levels and the commencement of activities of motoneurons of the triangularis sterni. This delay was significantly reduced in apneusis. Peak discharge frequencies of triangularis sterni motoneurons were the same in eupnea and apneusis. We conclude that rostral pontile mechanisms contribute significantly to defining the phases of neural expiration.