Neonatal conditioning for adult respiratory behavior

Specific challenges and perturbations presented during certain 'sensitive periods' of neonatal life have been shown to modify the structure and function of several physiological systems in such a way as to produce long-term and often permanent changes in the behavioral expression of the system. These same phenomena have been reported in a few studies of respiratory control. We have shown that a conditioning paradigm of intermittent sleep interruption presented during the first 4 weeks of life in rats will increase the number of respiratory pauses (apneas >1 sec in duration) observed in these animals some 10-12 weeks later. Furthermore, in adult conditioned animals, apneic pauses can be dramatically reduced by a counter-conditioning stimulus (white noise), and abolished completely by barbiturate anesthesia. These observations indicate that the respiratory control system in the brainstem of the neonate contains a degree of developmental plasticity which is experience-dependent and modifiable, and that the adult expression of acquired apneic breathing patterns can be effectively reduced by behavioral methods. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.