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The Journal of Neuroscience, June 15, 1999, 19(12):5131-5137

Vibrissae-Evoked Behavior and Conditioning before Functional Ontogeny of the Somatosensory Vibrissae Cortex

Margo S. Landers and Regina M. Sullivan

Department of Zoology, University of Oklahoma, Norman, Oklahoma 73019

The following experiments determined that the somatosensory whisker system is functional and capable of experience-dependent behavioral plasticity in the neonate before functional maturation of the somatosensory whisker cortex. First, unilateral whisker stimulation caused increased behavioral activity in both postnatal day (P) 3-4 and P8 pups, whereas stimulation-evoked cortical activity (¹⁴C 2-deoxyglucose autoradiography) was detectable only in P8 pups. Second, neonatal rat pups are capable of forming associations between whisker stimulation and a reinforcer. A classical conditioning paradigm (P3-P4) showed that the learning groups (paired whisker stimulation-shock or paired whisker stimulation-warm air stream) exhibited significantly higher behavioral responsiveness to whisker stimulation than controls. Finally, stimulus-evoked somatosensory cortical activity during testing [P8; using ¹⁴C 2-deoxyglucose (2-DG) autoradiography] was assessed after somatosensory conditioning from P1-P8. No learning-associated differences in stimulus-evoked cortical activity were detected between learning and nonlearning control groups. Together, these experiments demonstrate that the whisker system is functional in neonates and capable of experience-dependent behavioral plasticity. Furthermore, in contrast to adult somatosensory classical conditioning, these data suggest that the cortex is not required for associative somatosensory learning in neonates.

Key words: vibrissae; whiskers; development; learning; neural plasticity; barrels; somatosensory cortex; behavioral plasticity

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Copyright © 1999 Society for Neuroscience  0270-6474/99/19125131-07$05.00/0

This article has been cited by other articles:

				S. Moriceau and R. M. Sullivan Unique Neural Circuitry for Neonatal Olfactory Learning J. Neurosci., February 4, 2004; 24(5): 1182 - 1189. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

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