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Updated: Sep 13, 2025
Electrophysiology on Isolated Brainstem-spinal Cord Preparations from Newborn Rodents Allows Neural Respiratory Network Output Recording
Published on: November 19, 2015
Ion channels in respiratory rhythm generation and sensorimotor integration
Carlos Aparecido da Silva Junior1, Maria Cristina D Picardo2, Christopher A Del Negro2
1Department of Applied Science, School of Computing, Data Sciences & Physics, William & Mary, Williamsburg, VA 23185, USA; Department of Biology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 2712, USA.
Abstract:
Breathing movements depend on rhythmic neural activity in brainstem nuclei whose constituent neurons are well characterized. Knowing the sites and cells underlying the behavior enables us to identify the roles of individual ion channels. They accomplish three tasks: regulate excitability via the balance of intrinsic currents that govern baseline membrane potential and tonic firing; generate bursts to drive the motor output pattern; and transduce blood-gas levels, lung volume, and air qualities. Here, we explain how sodium and mixed cation channels (sodium leak channel non-selective [NALCN], NaV1.6, and transient receptor potential [TRP] melastatin 4 [TRPM4]) both regulate excitability and generate bursts and how potassium (predominantly two-pore domain acid-sensitive potassium [TASK]-2) and mixed cation (PIEZO and TRP) channels encode sensory feedback to central control circuits. These mechanisms underlie normal breathing and sigh breaths. Breathing is a mammalian behavior in which rhythmogenesis and sensorimotor integration can be understood at multiple levels of analysis from microcircuits and cells to ion channels and genes.
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