Respiratory-related evoked potentials elicited by inspiratory occlusions in double-lung transplant recipients

This study investigated the role of lung vagal afferents in the respiratory-related evoked potential (RREP) response to inspiratory occlusions by using double-lung transplant recipients as a lung denervation model. Evoked potential recordings in response to inspiratory occlusions were obtained from 10 double-lung transplant (DLT) recipients with normal lung function and 12 healthy control (Nor) subjects under the attend, ignore, and unoccluded conditions. Results demonstrated that early-latency RREP components (P-1, P-1a, N-f, and N-1) were not significantly different between the DLT and the Nor groups. The late-latency RREP component (P-3) was identifiable in all DLT subjects during the attend trial. However, P-3 latency was significantly longer in the DLT group compared with the Nor group. The zero-to-peak amplitude of P-3 was also significantly smaller in the DLT group than that in the Nor group during the attend trial. These results suggest that lung vagal afferents were not essential to elicit RREP responses, but may contribute to the cognitive processing of respiratory stimuli.