Sciatic nerve stimulation activates the retrotrapezoid nucleus in anesthetized rats

Retrotrapezoid nucleus (RTN) neurons sustain breathing automaticity. These neurons have chemoreceptor properties, but their firing is also regulated by multiple synaptic inputs of uncertain function. Here we test whether RTN neurons, like neighboring presympathetic neurons, are excited by somatic afferent stimulation. Experiments were performed in Inactin-anesthetized, bilaterally vagotomized, paralyzed, mechanically ventilated Sprague-Dawley rats. End-expiratory CO₂ (eeCO₂) was varied between 4% and 10% to modify rate and amplitude of phrenic nerve discharge (PND). RTN and presympathetic neurons were recorded extracellularly below the facial motor nucleus with established criteria. Sciatic nerve stimulation (SNstim, 1 ms, 0.5 Hz) slightly increased blood pressure (6.6 ± 1.6 mmHg) and heart rate and, at low eeCO₂ (<5.5%), entrained PND. Ipsi- and contralateral SNstim produced the known biphasic activation of presympathetic neurons. SNstim evoked a similar but weaker biphasic response in up to 67% of RTN neurons and monophasic excitation in the rest. At low eeCO_2, RTN neurons were silent and responded more weakly to SNstim than at high eeCO₂ RTN neuron firing was respiratory modulated to various degrees. The phasic activation of RTN neurons elicited by SNstim was virtually unchanged at high eeCO₂ when PND entrainment to the stimulus was disrupted. Thus RTN neuron response to SNstim did not result from entrainment to the central pattern generator. Overall, SNstim shifted the relationship between RTN firing and eeCO₂ upward. In conclusion, somatic afferent stimulation increases RTN neuron firing probability without altering their response to CO_2. This pathway may contribute to the hyperpnea triggered by nociception, exercise (muscle metabotropic reflex), or hyperthermia.