[Changes in the intragastric contents during sleep affect the statistical characteristics of the neuronal activity in...

Firing activity in somatosensory cortical area was analyzed in cats during slow wave sleep. Statistical characteristics of the background activity were calculated before and after changes of the intragastric contents (introduction of 50 ml of water into stomach). This procedure did not affect the depth of sleep. There were no changes of the mean firing frequency and the local variation coefficients. To evaluate the degree of chaos in neuronal firing before and after changes of the intragastric contents, the dependence of the Fano factor from the length of the intervals of analysis was calculated. This dependence before water infusion for 40 neurons expressed as a power function with index of power > 0.2 what indicated on fractal nature of the background activity. The changes of the gastric contents in 18 neurons lead to considerable changes of the indexes of power of this function. It is known that in wakefulness for cortical neurons these indexes are dependent on the specific sensory stimulation. Thus, our results can be considered as an indication that during slow wave sleep signals from stomach are included in the afferent flow to the cortical areas, which in wakefulness are involved in somatosensory functions.