Respiratory Rhythm Entrainment by Somatic Afferent Stimulation

Abstract
Respiratory and locomotor patterns are coupled during locomotion. The objectives of this study were to (1) demonstrate that respiratory rhythms are entrained by sensory input from somatic afferents, (2) establish whether the parabrachial nucleus mediates entrainment, (3) examine responses of single respiratory neurons in the ventral respiratory group (VRG) to somatic afferent stimulation, and (4) use a computational model of the pontomedullary respiratory network (Rybak et al., 2004a,b) to suggest neuronal mechanisms for entrainment.