Transcallosal response (TCR) in the chronic photosensitive baboon preparation, Papio papio. I. Premotor cortical stimulation, recovery cycle and neurotropic drug effect.

Transcallosal response (TCR) and its recovery cycle were studied in the chronic photosensitive baboon, Papio papio. Bipolar premotor intracortical stimulation evoked early positive (P1) and negative (N1) sequences followed by late small positivity (P2) and large negativity (N2) in the contralateral homotopic site. The sequential pattern of P1 and N1 was similar to that previously described in acute preparations. The recovery cycle as measured by means of paired stimuli with varying inter-stimulus intervals (ISI) showed a marked supernormality of P1 and N1 at an ISI of 15-200 msec with maximal facilitation up to 250-300% of the conditioning response at an ISI of 30-50 msec. Pentobarbital (10 mg/kg) suppressed this supernormality without causing a constant TCR amplitude change. In contrast, a significant increase in both the TCR amplitude and the supernormality of the recovery cycle was observed with a subconvulsive dose (3 mg/kg) of Megimide, a presumed antagonist of pentobarbital. Our results suggest that (a) the recovery cycle is a more sensitive measure than amplitude for assessing the effect of neurotropic drugs on TCR, and (b) the P1, N1 amplitudes and the supernormality may represent different neuronal processes involved in the TCR.