Some Peculiarities of Formation, Functioning and Inhibition of Conditioned Reflexes with two-way Connections

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter focuses on some peculiarities of formation, functioning, and inhibition of conditioned reflexes with two-way connections. The problem of the conditioned reflexes with two-way connection has long been raised in the physiology of higher nervous activity and psychology. In studies, in order to elaborate conditioned reflexes, two such stimuli were combined. Both of the stimuli evoked easily observable and precisely recordable innate or unconditioned reflexes. In particular, pairs of the following stimuli were presented in stereotyped or altered sequence—food, electrical cutaneous stimulation, air-puff into the eye, passive lifting of a limb, and local skin cooling. Sometimes, one of these stimuli was coupled with indifferent stimuli. The results suggested that the circulation of excitation between the coupled nervous foci along the opposite connections is an indispensable term of normal conditioned activity that ensures the multiform interaction among foci, and which, in particular, provides for a considerable duration and strength of the conditioned reaction. The results support the concept that conditioned inhibition first appears in the elements of the conditioned reflex arc and only subsequently, with its considerable deepening, extends to the structures of the coupled nervous foci of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.