Expiratory neurones, with a decrementing firing pattern during the first phase of expiration (EDEC) and located in the rostral ventrolateral medulla, are thought to be involved in the network generating respiratory rhythm, which also includes expiratory neurones with augmenting firing patterns (E-AUG). We used crosscorrelation to detect their synaptic interconnections and connections to phrenic motoneurones in 32 vagotomised, decerebrate, paralysed and ventilated male rats. Pairs of neurones were recorded extracellularly with glass-insulated tungsten microelectrodes and the whole phrenic nerve with bipolar silver wire electrodes. Of the 79 crosscorrelograms computed between pairs of E-DEC neurones, 8 (-10%) showed evidence for inhibitory connections. Of the 67 cross-correlograms computed between EDEC and E-AUG neurones, 5 (7.5%) showed evidence for a monosynaptic inhibition of the E-AUG neurone by the E-DEC neurone, while 3 (4.5%) showed evidence for a monosynaptic inhibition of the E-DEC neurone by the EAUG neurone. An inhibitory connection from E-DEC neurones to phrenic motoneurones was detected in 5 (-2%) of the cross-correlograms, and from E-AUG neurones to phrenic motoneurones in 4 (-3.7%). These results are the first demonstration that network models of rhythm generation in the rat involving reciprocal inhibition between E-DEC and E-AUG neurones could have a neurophysiological basis, and the first to demonstrate that phrenic motoneurones are inhibited during the early phase of expiration by E-DEC neurones.