| Abstract: | Spontaneous and evoked unit activity in the auditory cortex of waking cats was studied during defensive conditioning. An increase in the frequency of spontaneous activity arising under these circumstances in many neurons was frequently observed after presentation of the first combinations (before the appearance of effector responses), and reached its highest probability after thirty combinations (parallel with the appearance of conditioned-reflex motor responses). Comparison of the mean frequencies of spontaneous activity and the corresponding evoked activity reveals, on the one hand, a nonlinear relationship between them and, on the other hand, dominance of responses of activation type and weaker representation of inhibitory responses. Several levels of spontaneous activity were discovered, corresponding to particular zones of mean frequencies of evoked activity. Analysis of spontaneous activity before and after presentation of the conditioned stimulus (the after-period) showed that the mean frequencies in both these periods were very similar in the case of a stable conditioned reflex. In that case preservation of the structure of the spike train of several neurons was observed for stable time intervals (ranging from tens of minutes to 1–3 h).A. A. Bogomolets Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 12, No. 3, pp. 227–238, May– June, 1980. |
