The airway-related parasympathetic motoneurones in the ventrolateral medulla of newborn rats were dissociated anatomically and in functional control.

The respiratory-related synaptic control of the airway-related preganglionic parasympathetic motoneurones (APPMs) has not been investigated, and whether differently targeted APPMs receive differential respiratory-related synaptic modulation is unknown. In this study, putative APPMs in the ventrolateral medulla of newborn rats were retrogradely traced with fluorescent tracer and were examined using the patch-clamp method in brainstem slices with respiratory rhythm. The results indicate that tracer application directly to the recurrent laryngeal nerve only labelled the putative APPMs within the compact portion of nucleus ambiguus (cNA), while tracer injection into the trachea wall labelled the putative APPMs both in cNA and in the area ventral/ventrolateral to cNA (vNA). The putative APPMs within cNA received mainly inhibitory inputs, which in some (9 of 20) neurones showed an inspiratory-related attenuation and in others (7 of 20) showed an inspiratory-related augmentation. At least some putative APPMs within cNA, of which the inhibitory synaptic inputs showed inspiratory-related changes, might be related to the control of laryngeal muscles. The putative APPMs in vNA receive both excitatory and inhibitory inputs, and central inspiratory activity excited some (11 of 19) neurones via augmentation of their excitatory inputs and inhibited others (8 of 19) via augmentation of their inhibitory inputs. At least some putative APPMs in vNA might be trachea-related motoneurones. These results provide evidence that APPMs controlling different segments of the airway might be dissociated in the ventrolateral medulla both anatomically and in functional control.