Effect on ventilation of papaverine administered to the brain stem of the anaesthetized cat.

1. To investigate whether cerebral vasodilatation by itself contributes to the decrease in ventilation as found during brain stem hypoxia the role of cerebral vasodilatation on minute ventilation was investigated in twelve cats anaesthetized with alpha-chloralose-urethane. 2. Cerebral vasodilatation in the medulla oblongata was produced by adding papaverine to the blood perfusing the brain stem. 3. Papaverine at concentrations of 10-35 micrograms per millilitre of blood had an appreciable depressant effect on ventilation. At a concentration of 14.3 micrograms ml-1 the depression in ventilation averaged 0.7 +/- 0.1 l min-1. 4. The ventilatory response to stepwise changes in papaverine concentration could be adequately described with a single exponential function with a time delay. 5. The time constant of the ventilatory response following a step increase in papaverine concentration (134 +/- 15 s) was longer than that of the step decrease (105 +/- 10 s) in concentration (P = 0.034). The time delays of the ventilatory response (88 +/- 21 s and 53 +/- 8 s respectively) were not significantly different (P = 0.126). 6. The ventilatory response to stimulation of the peripheral chemoreceptors by hypoxia and of the central chemoreceptors by hypercapnia was not impaired by papaverine. 7. The results support the hypothesis that cerebral vasodilatation by itself contributes to the decrease in ventilation by brain stem hypoxia.