RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Distinctive Features of Adult Ocular Dominance Plasticity
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 10278
OP 10286
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2451-08.2008
VO 28
IS 41
A1 Sato, Masaaki
A1 Stryker, Michael P.
YR 2008
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/28/41/10278.abstract
AB Sensory experience profoundly shapes neural circuitry of juvenile brain. Although the visual cortex of adult rodents retains a capacity for plasticity in response to monocular visual deprivation, the nature of this plasticity and the neural circuit changes that accompany it remain enigmatic. Here, we investigate differences between adult and juvenile ocular dominance plasticity using Fourier optical imaging of intrinsic signals in mouse visual cortex. This comparison reveals that adult plasticity takes longer than in the juvenile mouse, is of smaller magnitude, has a greater contribution from the increase in response to the open eye, and has less effect on the hemisphere ipsilateral to the deprived eye. Binocular deprivation also causes different changes in the adult. Adult plasticity is similar to juvenile plasticity in its dependence on signaling through NMDA receptors. We propose that adult ocular dominance plasticity arises from compensatory mechanisms that counterbalance the loss of afferent activity caused by visual deprivation.