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Electronic Letters to:
- DevelopmentPlasticityRepair:
Yuanyuan Jiao, Chunzhao Zhang, Yuchio Yanagawa, and Qian-Quan Sun- Major Effects of Sensory Experiences on the Neocortical Inhibitory Circuits
J. Neurosci. 2006; 26: 8691-8701[Abstract] [Full text] [PDF]
eLetters: Submit a response to this article
Electronic letters published:
Barrel identification in slices
- Jochen F. Staiger (19 March 2007)
Barrel identification in slices 19 March 2007 
Jochen F. Staiger Send letter to journal:
Re: Barrel identification in slices
jochen.staiger{at}anat.uni-freiburg.de Jochen F. Staiger
This paper which covers a very interesting topic, in my opinion, is compromised by slice preparations and anatomical methods which are not sufficient to support the morphological interpretations. My main criticisms are the use of thalamocortical slices leads to an “parallel-to-row” orientation, thus, in vitro an identification of arc-identity is not possible without prior in vivo mapping and/or labeling (1,2). In addition, Figure 2 with the tangential slice has a low signal-to -noise ratio and a probably incomplete appearance of the barrel field which makes it difficult to know if barrel identification was correct. The staining for “GAD 65/67-ir” spiny neurons is problematic, because the offered explanation of the confocal microscopy (i.e. somatic “overlay” of numerous perisomatic GAD65/67-ir boutons with the cytoplasm of an unstained target neuron) is not convincing, unless unusually thick optical sections were used. For the GFP-immunocytochemistry or the expression level of GFP in the vitro slice Figs. 1A3, B3 and 5A2 are supposed to show the same thing, but in fact do not. Neither picture coincides with the complete pattern of GAD 65/67 in the barrel cortex. Finally it is not clear from the text whether electrophysiological recordings were performed in slices from animals where all whiskers, or only specific rows, were trimmed.
1. Land PW and Kandler K (2002). Somatotopic organization of rat thalamocortical slices. J Neurosci Methods 119,15-21.
2. Bender KJ, Rangel J, and Feldman DE (2003). Development of columnar topography in the excitatory layer 4 to layer 2/3 projection in rat barrel cortex. J Neurosci 23, 8759-8770.
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