INTRACELLULAR POSTSYNAPTIC POTENTIALS IN THE SOMATOSENSORY CORTEX OF THE CAT.

Abstract

CELLULAR activity in the somatosensory cerebral cortex has been investigated in detail with extracellular recording. Excitatory phenomena have dominated the findings in these experiments although inhibitory actions, mostly as ‘surround inhibition’, have been reported1–3. Since inhibition is abundant in the relay nuclei of the specific projection system4–6 it has generally been assumed that the inhibition of cortical cells reflects inhibitory actions at sub-cortical level. The present results show, however, that powerful inhibitory potentials are generated in many cortical cells.