Appearance of functional connections between neurons resulting from changes in the frequency of their spike activity during the performance by animals of conditioned-reflex food-procuring responses.

Cats were conditioned to a food-procuring reflex to time. Correlation analysis was applied to multineuron activity in the motor cortex to study the functional connections between neurons with changing and constant instantaneous spike frequencies on performance by the animals of the passive waiting phase of the conditioned reflex, the number of functional connections between "areactive" neurons was smaller than that between "reactive" neurons; during the phase of active waiting, the numbers of functional connections become similar. The increase in the number of functional connections between "areactive" neurons during the active waiting phase appears to reflect an intensification of the analysis and processing of information, while changes in the functional connections between "reactive" neurons was regarded as allowing the possibility of correcting functional structures in the case of a rapid change in the situation or state of the animal.