The Problem of Stationary Excitation and Changes in the Cortical Steady Potential during the Formation of Dominant Foci and Temporary Connections

Abstract

Anyone who examines the history of development of theories of excitation in the general physiology of the nervous system will detect two clearly distinguishable approaches. One is well covered in the world physiological literature. This is the approach developed some years ago by the Cambridge school of physiology on the basis of the results of experiments on peripheral nerve. The followers of this approach regard every type of excitation as a propagating impulse reflected electrographically as the action current of a traveling wave. The older generation of English physiologists regarded this impulse as the standard or unit of excitation. This view was put forward by Adrian, who applied it to the physiology of the central nervous system, as is clear from his explanations of the slow waves in the electrocorticogram. Adrian (Adrian and Matthews, 1934) considered that all waves of electrical potential in the cortex are formed from relatively short pulsations in single neurons and that slow changes of potential result from summation. This means, Adrian wrote, that hope must be abandoned for the idea that slow changes of potential in the cortex can indicate a slow change of polarization in nerve cells or indicate the rise and fall of excitation which is reflected in this activity.