Anesthesiology
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The efficacy of opioid administration to reduce postoperative pain is limited by respiratory depression. We investigated whether clinically relevant opioid concentrations altered the respiratory pattern in the parabrachial nucleus, a pontine region contributing to respiratory pattern generation, and compared these effects with a medullary respiratory site, the pre-Bötzinger complex. ⋯ The "tachypneic area" of the parabrachial nucleus is highly sensitive to μ-opioid receptor activation and mediates part of the respiratory rate depression by clinically relevant administration of opioids.