| Abstract: | With the aid of tetanus toxin, which disturbs various types of inhibition, generators of excitation were created in the left and right anterior horns of the lumbar spinal cord in rats. The regimes of activity of the generators differed: the left-sided generator, formed during the longer action of the toxin, in response to activation by trigger stimulation first produced tonic, and then intermittent activity, or individual spontaneous discharges, whereas the righ-sided generator produced only tonic activity. If one generator was blocked by glycine, the other continued to operate as before. Activation of one generator led to concomitant depression of the effects of the other. During separate activation of each generator, all the spinal and supraspinal motoneuron pools synchronously reproduced the character of activity of the generator functioning at that particular moment. The generator thus played the role of a determinant structure, determining the behavior of the system. The results are examined from the standpoint of the general concept of the role of determinant structures in the activity of the nervous system and the theory of generator mechanisms of neuropathological syndromes characterized by hyperactivity of systems.Laboratory of General Pathology of the Nervous System, Institute of General Pathology and Pathological Physiology, Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Moscow. Translated from Byulleten' Éksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 83, No. 5, pp. 515–519, May, 1977. |
