| Abstract: | In strict experimental conditions the basic activity of optic-cortex neurons in the rabbit was depressed after transverse section at the level of the rostral part of the reticular formation of the midbrain. Electrolytic destruction or functional blockage of the midbrain reticular formation (nucleus reticularis tegmenti) produces a decrease in frequency and magnitude in the grouping indexes of the cortex-neuron pulses that manifest the activity in these conditions. Destruction of specific nuclei in the optic pathway (those of the lateral geniculate body and the corpora bigemina) made no substantial change in the nature of the cortex-neuron pulses. Comparison of the parameters of pulsation activity of the same cortex neurons, as recorded before and after functional exclusion of the midbrain reticular formation, revealed that the increase in grouping of these pulses after the reticular formation was blocked induced changes in the intervals between groups of pulses, while the frequency of pulses within the groups remained constant. On the basis of the data obtained we may assume that the midbrain reticular formation plays an important role in generation of the background activity of cortex neurons, being a triggering mechanism that sets off a group of pulses. Distribution of pulses within the group is apparently due to the activity of cortex mechanisms only.A. A. Bogomolets Institute of Physiology, Academy of Sciences of the Ukrainian SSR, Kiev. Translated from Neirofiziologiya, Vol. 2, No. 1, pp. 43–51, January–February, 1970. |
