Department of Physiology, Showa University School of Medicine, Shinagawa-ku, Tokyo, Japan.
J Physiol Sci. 2012 Jan;62(1):71-7. doi: 10.1007/s12576-011-0179-2. Epub 2011 Nov 4.
The parafacial respiratory group (pFRG) is thought to be involved in respiratory rhythm generation in neonates. This subgroup expresses the transcription factor, Phox2b, and contains intrinsically CO(2) sensitive neurons. Calcium imaging has been widely used for analysis of neuronal activity at the cellular and network level. In the present study, we applied calcium imaging to analyze neuronal activity of the most-rostral pFRG in an in vitro brainstem-spinal cord preparation from neonatal rats. We detected strong pre-inspiratory neuron activity in the most rostral pFRG, suggesting that significant numbers of pre-inspiratory neurons are localized in the ventrolateral medulla near the rostral end of the medulla. We show that usage of calcium imaging would be very useful for analysis of neuronal activity over different time scales, and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of this method.
脑桥延髓面神经复合体呼吸亚群(pFRG)被认为参与新生儿的呼吸节律产生。这个亚群表达转录因子 Phox2b,并包含固有 CO2 敏感神经元。钙成像已广泛用于细胞和网络水平的神经元活动分析。在本研究中,我们应用钙成像来分析来自新生大鼠体外脑干-脊髓标本中最前颅 pFRG 的神经元活动。我们在最前颅 pFRG 中检测到强烈的预吸气神经元活动,这表明大量的预吸气神经元位于延髓头端附近的延髓腹外侧。我们表明钙成像的使用对于不同时间尺度的神经元活动分析非常有用,并讨论了这种方法的优缺点。