| The pre-Botzinger complex (pre-BotC) is thought to be the inspiratory kernel of the mammalian respiratory network. Multielectrode recording from the pre-BotC in an in vitro preparation of neonatal mice reveals that population burst triggered firing patterns in this network vary along several continuous dimensions and that firing patterns of neurons recorded simultaneously within the same slice can exhibit a variety of timing and shape profiles. Amplitude and slope features of these firing patterns are associated with intrinsic rhythmicity, as identified by pharmacological blockade of fast chemical synaptic transmission. These neurons (as well as those without pacemaker properties) show a high degree of cycle-to-cycle timing variation with respect to the onset of the population burst, and according to biophysical network models, this variability can be explained most plausibly by sparse network connectivity. Furthermore, network topology in general is shown in a series of additional simulations to have varied effects on network dynamics. |
