Spontaneous ventilation and respiratory motor output during carbachol-induced atonia of REM sleep in the decerebrate cat.

Microinjections of carbachol into the pons induce a state that resembles rapid eye movement (REM) sleep in intact cats and, in decerebrate, artificially ventilated cats, produce postural atonia accompanied by a powerful depression of the respiratory motor output. In this study, pontine carbachol was used in decerebrate, spontaneously breathing cats to assess the effects of mechanical and chemical respiratory reflexes on the magnitude and pattern of the carbachol-induced depression of breathing, and to determine whether the depression is altered in those animals in which rapid eye movements are present. Phrenic nerve activity and tidal volume were only transiently depressed at the onset of the carbachol-induced postural atonia, whereas the decrease in respiratory rate and the depressions of hypoglossal and intercostal activities persisted until the response was reversed by a pontine microinjection of atropine 15-101 minutes after the onset of carbachol response. Ventilation was reduced to 70% of control during the steady-state conditions. The irregularity of breathing, characterized by the inter-quartile ranges of the distributions of the peak phrenic nerve activity and respiratory timing, did not increase following pontine carbachol. Neither vagotomy nor vigorous eye movements were associated with increased breathing irregularity. This contrasts with the irregular breathing (with minor average changes in ventilation) typical of natural REM sleep. We propose that the carbachol-injected decerebrate cat provides a useful model of the depressant effects that neural events associated with REM sleep may have on breathing.