Responses of vestibular neurons to stimulation of cortical sensorimotor areas in the cat.

Abstract

Selected areas of sensorimotor cortex were stimulated with short trains adequate to evoke focal movements. Neurons belonging to the vestibular nuclear complex, including the lateral vestibular nucleus (LVN), were mainly affected by the stimulation of wrist-elbow, shoulder and cortical areas. The units responded to cortical stimulation either with a constant latency lower than 10 msec (short-latency units), or with variable latencies higher than 10 msec (long-latency units). Particular attention was paid to the first group of responses showing the involvement of direct and/or oligosynaptic facilitatory inputs from the cortical cells. Moreover, many of these responsive vestibular nuclear neurons were identified as projecting to the spinal cord.