[Multineuronal activity of the cerebral cortex in cats during nembutal anesthesia]

In chronic experiments on cats, the multiunit activity was studied under action of small doses of nembutal (15 mg/kg) in the motor cortex. A different sensitivity to nembutal was revealed in the cells. Simultaneous recording of the multiunit activity in two microareas (within 270 mu) revealed that the change of mean firing rate recorded with different electrodes was reciprocal in a number of cases. Bursts of discharges were synchronous in a certain anesthesia stage in neighbouring microareas but the distribution was different. Thus, the use of light nembutal narcosis allowed to differentiate specific changes of the multiunit activity from the changes elicited by general synchronizing effects.