Afferent neurodynamic and neurologic control of the respiratory rhythm

The respiratory central pattern generator (RCPG) is actively controlled by afferent feedbacks from vagal slowly-adapting stretch receptors (SAR) and carotid chemoreceptors. Earlier studies have shown that the central processing of these feedback signals exhibits both frequency and temporal filtering actions in the form of dynamic adaptation and phase-locked gating, respectively, demonstrating sophisticated integral-differential calculus and logic computations in corresponding central pathways. The paper presents several models that elucidate such afferent neurodynamic and neurologic control of the respiratory rhythm, based on physiological and anatomic data obtained in the rat. These computational models reveal certain basic organization/operation principles of central afferent signal processing that conform with and extend some classic models of nonassociative learning.