Increased motor excitability produced by alerting stimuli

The proposal that increased excitability of sensory and motor systems occurs in response to dishabituated sensory stimuli was supported by experiments with cats in which excitability was measured by the amplitude of the response evoked by an electrical test stimulus. Evoked EMG, evoked head movement and the postsynaptic visual cortex response were briefly augmented following such stimuli, with a latency less than 20 msec for auditory and less than 50 msec for visual stimuli. Evoked EMG responses were rare during habituation, but even faint stimuli (40 db (SPL) tone pips) were effective during conditioning procedures. The proposed organization of the brain was thought to have adaptive significance, helping the subject to cope with emergency situations by enhancing the processing of sensory and motor information.