THE REPRESENTATION OF RESPIRATORY MOVEMENTS IN THE CEREBRAL CORTEX

Abstract

In the cat and dog an inhibitory effect upon breathing was elicited from an area in the gyrus compositus anterior. A less marked inhibitory effect was obtained from most of the cortex of the sylvian and ectosylvian gyri, and in the cat from the gyrus proreus as well. The inhibitory area in the monkey is situated in the cortical field just caudal to the lower end of the sulcus pre-centralis inferior. An acceleratory response was elicited in the cat and dog from the rostrolateral part of the ant. sig-moid gyrus and the adjacent cortex forming the caudal wall of the sulcus praesylvius, and in the monkey from stimulation of an area just rostral to the sulcus precentralis superior. Various somatic and autonomic responses, obtained simultaneously with the respiratory changes, have been excluded as possible causes of the respiratory alterations. The region from which the acceleratory response was most easily elicited belongs cytoarchitecturally to area 6a in all 3 animals; that from which the inhibitory response was most easily obtained belongs to area 6b. The presence in the cat, dog, and monkey of cortical areas possessing similar cytoarchitectural structure and yielding similar physiological responses, suggests the existence of a fundamental plan for the cortical control of respiration in the general scheme of cerebral cortical evolution.