Abstract: | A statistical analysis of unit activity in spinal locomotor centers was undertaken on immobilized thalamic cats at rest and during generation of efferent discharges. Activation of the spinal locomotor generator was accompanied by shortening of interspike intervals in the spike sequences of neurons and a decrease in their fluctuations. Histograms of interspike intervals became more symmetrical under these circumstances and there was a considerable increase in the number of neurons whose activity showed regular fluctuations on autocorrelation histograms. Spike trains at rest were characterized by dependence of successive intervals, which increased during efferent discharge generation. The possible mechanisms of modification of the time structure of unit activity in spinal locomotor centers during their activation are discussed.A. A. Bogomolets Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 12, No. 2, pp. 192–198, March–April, 1980. |