Desynchronized respiratory rhythms and their interactions in cats with split brain stems.

1. The effects on activities and rhythms of the two opposing phrenic nerves (C5 roots) of mid-line sagittal splitting of the medulla were determined in anaesthetized or decorticate, vagotomized, paralysed and ventilated cats. 2. Splitting the medulla above the obex led to marked decreases of phrenic activity on both sides, but no desynchronization of the two phrenic rhythms occurred. Further splitting to more than 3 mm below the obex led to desynchronized phrenic rhythms in fourteen of the fifteen animals that survived the necessary surgery, although it was often necessary to increase respiratory drive by means of hypercapnia, stimulatory drugs or electrical stimulation of the mesencephalon to cause the rhythms to occur. 3. When only the brain stem had been split, the two desynchronized rhythms showed interactions that led to modulations of amplitude of phrenic bursts, both being larger when in phase than when out of phase. In addition each side modulated the rhythm of the opposite side, demonstrating a 'magnet' effect. 4. Both types of modulation were eliminated after additional splitting of the spinal cord at the level (C5-C6) of the phrenic motoneurone pools. 5. Potential explanations for the amplitude modulations include cross-over of activity from one phrenic motoneurone pool to the opposite side and cross-over from the medulla of one side to the opposite phrenic motoneurone pool at the phrenic level. 6. Since the rhythm generators were independent in our preparation and located in the split halves of the medulla and since peripheral sensory feed-back was not important in these paralysed animals, we propose that the phase modulations must be due to a corollary discharge, an afferent feed-back driven by phrenic motoneurone activity that crosses the mid-line at C5-C6, ascends to the brain and affects respiratory rhythm in the opposite medullary half.