Spectral analysis of arterial blood pressure and raphe magnus neuronal activity in anesthetized rats.

Recent evidence suggests that nociceptive modulatory cells in the nucleus raphe magnus (RM) and adjacent nucleus reticularis magnocellularis (NRMC) may participate in the modulation of autonomic processing. Therefore, spectral analyses were used to determine component frequencies common to both arterial blood pressure and the activity of RM/NRMC neurons in rats lightly anesthetized with isoflurane. These analyses detected powerful, extremely low frequency (period length: 6.4-18.5 min) oscillations in arterial blood pressure and in the activity of two classes of RM/NRMC neurons, ON and OFF cells. All ON cells discharged during periods of low blood pressure, whereas all OFF cells discharged during periods of high blood pressure. In contrast, the discharge of NEUTRAL and REGULAR cells did not have a consistent relationship to blood pressure. The role of these cells in nociceptive modulation is also unclear. The results presented indicate that ON and OFF cells may participate in the modulation of both autonomic and nociceptive processing.