Single unit activity in the lateral amygdala of the cat during sleep and waking

Neuronal activity of 58 cells in the lateral nucleus of the amygdala of freely moving cats was studied across stages of sleep-wakefulness. In general, these units were very slow firing in all states (mean discharge rate < 1 spike/sec) with the highest rates typically observed during slow wave sleep and paradoxical sleep. Most units tended to show some bursting activity during all states. The bursting during paradoxical sleep was not temporally correlated with the phasic activity characteristic of that state. These results corroborate and extend previous studies of the basal amygdaloid nuclei.