Rostral ventral medullary surface activity during hypercapnic challenges in awake and anesthetized goats.

Regions within the rostral ventral medullary surface (RVMS) play an important role in cardiorespiratory responses to CO2 during anesthesia. Activity within a RVMS area, in which local cooling elicited marked ventilatory and blood pressure reductions, was measured as 660 nm scattered light changes in 5 goats following 5% CO2 challenges during waking and anesthetic states. During wakefulness, hypercapnia elicited a substantial, short latency transient (1-1.