Elucidating tho significance of neural spike sequence patterns in tho respiratory control system was the main aim of this work;​ it has been pursued by testing and utilizing methods of non-stationary statistical analysis to characterize the signals concerned. An analogue model was developed to simulate the intercostal respiratory motoneurons (for which real data was available) and used to study the effects of parameter variations on the sequences generated. It was also employed to attempt to identify processing methods which would be most suitable for description of this data,(Particular attention was directed to non-stationary statistical methods applied to interval means, variances and covariances.)

The analytical procedures were then used in a study of the real neural sequences recorded in the cat and shown to yield results which were broadly similar for both real and simulated data. In order to test the influence of fluctuations of membrane potential (or of tonic level), thought to give rise to high correlation coefficients of pairs of intervals seen in the real data as well as in the analogue situation, a digital model was produced and studied.

Discrepancies found in a comparison of real and analogue data led to some interesting conclusions on the shape of the driving signal:​ For example, high values of correlation were obtained in the model throughout the cycle;​ similar values were measured at the beginning and towards the end of the cycle in the real situation but low values were found in the mid-breath region. Differences between these situations have been reported and an explanation of the features of membrane potential responsible for this behaviour (for which some physiological evidence has been found) was discussed.

The results of analysis also suggested the existence of "double" firing in several physiological preparations and two propositions were put forward to explain this phenomenon.