Respiratory network complexity in neonatal rat in vivo and in vitro

Numerous experimental preparations from neonatal rodents have been developed to study mechanisms responsible for respiratory rhythm generation. Amongst them, the in vivo anesthetized neonatal rat preparation and the in vitro medullary slice preparation from neonatal rat are commonly used. These two preparations not only contain a different extent of the neuroanatomical axis associated with central respiratory control, but they are also studied under markedly different conditions, all of which may affect the complex dynamics underlying the central inspiratory neural network. Here, we evaluated the approximate entropy (ApEn) underlying inspiratory motor bursts as an index of inspiratory neural network complexity from each preparation to address this possibility. Our findings suggest that the central inspiratory neural network of the in vivo anesthetized neonatal rat exhibits lower complexity (i.e., more order) than that observed in the in vitro transverse medullary slice preparation, both of which are substantially lower than that observed in more intact in vitro (e.g., arterially-perfused rat) and mature in vivo (e.g., anesthetized rat, piglet, cat) preparations. We suggest that additional studies be conducted to identify the precise mechanisms responsible for the differences in central inspiratory neural network complexity between these two neonatal rat preparations.