Activity during active sleep of bulbar reticular neurons firing rhythmically during mastication in cats.

Unitary activity was recorded from 17 bulbar reticular neurons, which fired rhythmically during mastication, in unanesthetized, spontaneously respiring cats during sleep and wakefulness. All these neurons showed the highest mean firing rate during food ingestion, and none of them showed any tonic discharge during active sleep. The results are discussed in terms of a functional differentiation of bulbar reticular inhibitory neurons projecting to jaw-closer motoneurons in relation to phasic inhibition during mastication and tonic inhibition during active sleep of jaw-closer motoneurons.