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During exercise, intense brain activity orchestrates an increase in muscle tension. Additionally, there is an increase in cardiac output and ventilation to compensate the increased metabolic demand of muscle activity and to facilitate the removal of CO₂ from and the delivery of O₂ to tissues. Here we tested the hypothesis that a subset of pontomedullary and hypothalamic neurons could be activated during dynamic acute exercise. Male Wistar rats (250–350g) were divided into an exercise group (n=12) that ran on a treadmill and a no-exercise group (n=7). Immunohistochemistry of pontomedullary and hypothalamic sections to identify activation (c-Fos expression) of cardiorespiratory areas showed that the no-exercise rats exhibited minimal Fos expression. In contrast, there was intense activation of the nucleus of the solitary tract, the ventrolateral medulla (including the presumed central chemoreceptor neurons in the …