[The interaction of rabbit neocortical neurons during natural feeding motivation]

Interaction between neurons in the visual and sensorimotor, visual and frontal cortical areas of both brain hemispheres was studied by means of cross- and autocorrelation histogram analysis in fed up and hungry rabbits after daily food deprivation. In hungry rabbits as compared with fed up ones the total number of neurons with correlated activity was higher (43 +/- 3 and 32 +/- 3%, respectively), the number of neuronal pairs with the frequency of interaction in the theta-range was higher, and that with interaction frequency in the alpha-range was lower. Interhemispheric asymmetry in correlation between the visual and sensorimotor neurons was observed in hungry animals. Most expressed changes were observed in the left hemisphere, where increase in the number of neuronal pairs with correlated activity was the highest and certain order of neuronal activity dominated, i.e., discharges of the sensorimotor neurons were up to 120 msec ahead of those of the visual ones.