The locus coeruleus (LC) complex, located in the dorsolateral pontine tegmentum, is composed of noradrenergic and self-inhibitory adrenoceptive neurons, which project to broad regions of the brain, including the spinal cord. Experiments were performed in decerebrate cats to find out whether units which had the physiological characteristics of noradrenergic neurons (i.e., a slow and regular resting discharge and a typical response to a noxious stimulus consisting of a short burst of excitation followed by a silent period), received a convergent input from both labyrinth and neck receptors. Among 90 LC-complex units, 13 of which could be identified antidromically as coeruleospinal (CS) neurons following electrical stimulation of the spinal cord at T12-L1, 52 (57.8%) responded to roll tilt of the animal and neck rotation at 0.15 Hz, +/- 10 degrees. The responses were particularly related to the extreme animal and neck displacements. Most of these convergent neurons (43/52, i.e., 82.7%) showed reciprocal ('out of phase') responses to the two inputs, while only a few units (9/52, i.e., 17.3%) showed parallel ('in phase') responses. Moreover, the majority of the 'out of phase' units showed an increased discharge during side-up animal tilt and side-down neck rotation. These predominant response patterns were just opposite to those of the vestibulospinal (VS) neurons projecting to the same segments of the spinal cord. The response characteristics of the LC-complex neurons to combined neck and vestibular inputs elicited during head rotation usually corresponded to those predicted by a vectorial summation of the individual neck and labyrinth responses, as shown for the VS neurons.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)