Estrogens, age, and, neonatal stress: panic disorders and novel views on the contribution of non-medullary structures to respiratory control and CO responses.

CO is a fundamental component of living matter. This chemical signal requires close monitoring to ensure proper match between metabolic production and elimination by lung ventilation. Besides ventilatory adjustments, CO can also trigger innate behavioral and physiological responses associated with fear and escape but the changes in brain CO/pH required to induce ventilatory adjustments are generally lower than those evoking fear and escape.

Persistent augmentation of fictive air breathing by hypoxia: An in vitro study of the role of GABA signaling in pre-metamorphic tadpoles.

Tadpole development is influenced by environmental cues and hypoxia can favor the emergence of the neural networks driving air breathing. Exposing isolated brainstems from pre-metamorphic tadpoles to acute hypoxia (∼0% O; 15 min) leads to a progressive increase in fictive air breaths (∼3 fold) in the hours that follow stimulation. Here, we first determined whether this effect persists over longer periods (<18 h); we then evaluated maturity of the motor output by comparing the breathing pattern of hypoxia-exposed brainstems to that of preparations from adult bullfrogs under basal conditions.