2019 Ludwig Lecture: Rhythms in sympathetic nerve activity are a key to understanding neural control of the...

This review is based on the Carl Ludwig Distinguished Lecture, presented at the 2019 Experimental Biology Meeting in Orlando, FL, and provides a snapshot of >40 years of work done in collaboration with the late Gerard L. Gebber and colleagues to highlight the importance of considering the rhythmic properties of sympathetic nerve activity (SNA) and brain stem neurons when studying the neural control of autonomic regulation. After first providing some basic information about rhythms, I describe the patterns and potential functions of rhythmic activity recorded from sympathetic nerves under various physiological conditions. I review the evidence that these rhythms reflect the properties of central sympathetic neural networks that include neurons in the caudal medullary raphe, caudal ventrolateral medulla, caudal ventrolateral pons, medullary lateral tegmental field, rostral dorsolateral pons, and rostral ventrolateral medulla. The role of these brain stem areas in mediating steady-state and reflex-induced changes in SNA and blood pressure is discussed. Despite the common appearance of rhythms in SNA, these oscillatory characteristics are often ignored; instead, it is common to simply quantify changes in the amount of SNA to make conclusions about the function of the sympathetic nervous system in mediating responses to a variety of stimuli. This review summarizes work that highlights the need to include an assessment of the changes in the frequency components of SNA in evaluating the cardiovascular responses to various manipulations as well as in determining the role of different brain regions in the neural control of the cardiovascular system.