[Neurophysiological characteristics of the rat sensorimotor cortex in early motor deprivation and training].

Young rats, beginning with the age of 1 month, were kept in small size cages for 3 months, i.e., were exposed to 3-month motor deprivation. This exposure caused a modulating effect of a diminished activity of neuronal populations in the sensorimotor cortex which manifested as a prolongation of the latent periods of primary responses and recovery cycles of excitation of the neuronal populations generating the responses. The differences in the opposite changes in the sensorimotor cortex of the young animals that developed following prolonged deprivation and training of similar duration were seen in the parameters of excitation recovery cycles rather than in the latent periods. The reserve capabilities of the developing cortical structure associated with the modulation of excitation recovery cycles during training were 2.0-2.5 times greater than the dysfunctional changes in the same neuronal populations during motor deprivation. Both early motor deprivation and training did not influence the heterochronic development, emergence and subsequent attainment of the maximum amplitude of components of the testing primary response in the process of a gradual increase of the stimulus-to-stimulus interval.