The effects of changing levels of arousal on the spontaneous activity of cortical neurones I. Sleep and wakefulness

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Abstract
It was previously shown that the interval distributions derived from the activity of single cortical neurons can be described by log-normal curves. This description proved satisfactory for cells in visual parietal and auditory cortex. Two parameters, a modal interval and a geometric standard deviation (g.s.d.), are sufficient to define the whole temporal pattern of discharge for neurons that fire faster than 2.5/s. The same 2 parameters may be used to describe the 1st parts of the interval distributions of cells firing less frequently. Whether the values of these 2 parameters vary systematically with an animal''s state of alertness was studied. Records were made from single neurons in various parts of the cerebral cortex of unrestrained male cats, when the animals were awake and when they were sleeping.