Decreased GABAergic Neurotransmission Promotes Breathing Upon Emergence From Hibernation

The respiratory network must produce reliable output for an animal to survive. Although respiratory motor plasticity is well appreciated, how plasticity mechanisms work to promote robustness following environmental perturbations that disrupt breathing is less clear. During underwater hibernation, respiratory neurons of bullfrogs remain inactive for months, triggering a suite of compensatory mechanisms that aim to maintain respiratory function. We hypothesized that GABAergic inhibition would decrease following hibernation. In control animals, respiratory frequency was under control of GABA A R signaling. Specifically, block of GABA A Rs dose-dependently decreased respiratory burst frequency in the in vitro brainstem preparation (n=5 preparations). After hibernation, GABA A receptor block had little to no impact on respiratory burst frequency, suggesting the network was no longer reliant on GABAergic inhibition to maintain normal frequency (n=5 preparations). The loss of inhibition was specific to the respiratory network because non-respiratory motor activity and large seizure-like bursts were similarly triggered by GABA A receptor blockade in intact brainstem preparations from controls and hibernators. We next used a semi-intact preparation that maintains functional respiratory-synaptic input onto rhythmic motor neurons to identify compensatory changes in GABAergic tone at the level of the motor neuron. In controls, the firing rate of respiratory motoneurons was constrained by a phasic GABA A R tone because focal application of bicuculline, a GABA A R antagonist, led to an increase in phasic firing frequency (n=12 cells). After hibernation, this bicuculline-mediated increase in phasic firing frequency was attenuated suggesting phasic inhibition onto the motor neuron had decreased (n=9 cells). Brain slice recordings of identified vagal motor neurons revealed that postsynaptic GABA A receptor strength was unchanged following hibernation (n=16 control cells; n=16 hibernation cells). Taken together, our results suggest that GABAergic activity is decreased in premotor networks following hibernation. Despite this dramatic loss of GABAergic function, respiratory output from control preparations was indistinguishable from hibernators. To elucidate the functional impacts of loss of GABAergic activity, we tested the network’s ability to produce output at colder temperatures. In controls, respiratory output slowed as temperature decreased, with most networks nearly silent at 8 degrees Celsius (n=5 preparations). Interestingly, in controls low dose block of GABA A receptors promoted respiratory activity at cold temperatures, with frequency not statistically different than baseline at any temperature tested (n=4 preparations). This suggests that the loss of premotor GABAergic activity we observed could work to promote motor output at colder temperatures, which works adaptively for the animal when emerging from hibernation. NIH R01NS114514 (JS). This is the full abstract presented at the American Physiology Summit 2024 meeting and is only available in HTML format. There are no additional versions or additional content available for this abstract. Physiology was not involved in the peer review process.