Organization of the brain stem neural mechanisms for generation of respiratory rhythm - Current problems.

Abstract

The motoneuronal populations controlling the respiratory motor apparatus are located from sites in the brain stem to lumbar segments of the spinal cord [48,60]. In production and maintenance of respiratory movements these motoneuronal pools are mainly regulated by specific integrative neural mechanisms, the so-called central respiratory mechanisms, under various conditions. Rhythmic control of the act of breathing is performed by a rhythmic nervous activity which originates in the lower brain stem [13,15,16,47,60]. Respiratory movements are continuously adjusted in response to physiological demands of the organism by neural [13,15,16,47,60] and chemical respiratory control mechanisms [54]. These dynamic regulatory processes are maintained involving the entire neuraxis [16,21,35], although the central respiratory mechanisms in the brain stem play a main role in the regulation of breathing [13,15;16, 24, 36].

The Human Brain Stem and Cerebellum

“…Brain stem respiratory centers The respiratory centers are divided into medullary and pontine centers [130,180,214]. -The medullary centers comprise two groups of cells: a dorsal group in the nucleus of the solitary tract, a ventral group, often called nucleus retroambiguus (the term nucleus retroambiguus sometimes designates the lowest part of the nucleus ambiguus), situated in the reticular formation around the nucleus ambiguus.…”