The preBötzinger complex (preBötC), located within the ventral respiratory column, produces inspiratory bursts in varying degrees of synchronization/amplitude. This wide range of population burst patterns reflects the flexibility of the preBötC neurons, which is expressed in variations in the onset/offset times of their activations and their activity during the population bursts, with respiratory neurons exhibiting a large cycle-to-cycle timing jitter both at the population activity onset and at the population activity peak; suggesting that respiratory neurons are stochastically activated before and during the inspiratory bursts. However, it is still unknown whether this stochasticity is maintained while evaluating the coactivity of respiratory neuronal ensembles. Moreover, the preBötC topology also remains unknown. Here, by simultaneously recording tens of preBötC neurons and using coactivation analysis during the inspiratory periods, we found that the preBötC has a scale-free configuration (mixture of not many highly connected nodes -hubs- with abundant poorly connected elements) exhibiting the rich-club phenomenon (hubs more likely interconnected with each other). PreBötC neurons also produce multineuronal activity patterns (MAPs) that are highly stable and change during the hypoxia-induced reconfiguration. Moreover, preBötC contains a coactivating core network shared by all its MAPs. Finally, we found a distinctive pattern of sequential coactivation of core network neurons at the beginning of the inspiratory periods, indicating that, when evaluated at the multicellular level, the coactivation of respiratory neurons seems not to be stochastic.

中文翻译：

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体外呼吸和喘息期间主要吸气多神经元活动模式的配置和动态

位于腹侧呼吸柱内的 preBötzinger 复合体 (preBötC) 以不同程度的同步/幅度产生吸气爆发。这种广泛的群体爆发模式反映了 preBötC 神经元的灵活性，这表现为它们在群体爆发期间的激活和活动的开始/偏移时间的变化，呼吸神经元表现出大的周期到周期的时间抖动在种群活动开始和种群活动高峰时；这表明呼吸神经元在吸气爆发之前和期间被随机激活。然而，在评估呼吸神经元集合的协同性时是否保持这种随机性仍然未知。此外，preBötC 拓扑也仍然未知。这里，通过同时记录数十个 preBötC 神经元并在吸气期间使用共激活分析，我们发现 preBötC 具有无标度配置（不是很多高度连接的节点 - 集线器 - 与大量连接不良的元素的混合），表现出丰富的俱乐部现象（集线器更有可能相互连接）。PreBötC 神经元还会产生高度稳定的多神经元活动模式 (MAP)，并且在缺氧诱导的重构过程中会发生变化。此外，preBötC 包含一个由其所有 MAP 共享的共激活核心网络。最后，我们在吸气期开始时发现了核心网络神经元顺序共激活的独特模式，这表明，当在多细胞水平上进行评估时，呼吸神经元的共激活似乎不是随机的。