Figure 3.

Endogenous SP activation persists in pre-BötC island preparation. Shown is the effect of the NK1 antagonist on respiratory population activity recorded from a pre-BötC island slice. A, Schematic of a transverse slice (left schematic), which is used to isolate an island slice (right schematic) that contains the pre-BötC and a minimal amount of surrounding tissue. B, Integrated population activity obtained from extracellular activity recorded from the surface of a portion of the VRG containing the pre-BötC under control conditions (top trace) and following the application of the NK1 antagonist RP67580 (bottom trace). C, D, The application of the NK1 antagonist RP67580 decreases significantly the frequency (C) and increases the irregularity of respiratory rhythmic activity (D). The irregularity is expressed as the “irregularity score” as explained in Materials and Methods (white bar: control, gray bar: 1 μm RP67580, n = 5).