Chapter 15 Cortical plasticity revealed by circumscribed retinal lesions or artificial scotomas

doi:10.1016/S0079-6123(01)34016-5

Progress in Brain Research

Volume 134, 2001, Pages 217-246

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0079-6123(01)34016-5 Get rights and content

Abstract

We review the work of others in which the effects of circumscribed, topographically corresponding binocular retinal lesions on the topographic organization of the visual cortex revealed that there is a substantial degree of topographical plasticity in the primary visual cortices of adult cats and macaque monkeys. Despite the evidence indicating that the reorganization of the topographic map in primary visual cortices of adult cats and macaques related to the input from one eye could be suppressed for a long time by inputs related to the other eye, we observed a substantial degree of topographical plasticity in the primary visual cortices of adult cats in which we have made circumscribed monocular retinal lesions. Overall, in both binocularly and monocularly lesioned adult animals, most cells recorded in the cortical projection zone of the retinal lesion (LPZ), several hours, several weeks or several months after placement of the lesions exhibited ‘ectopic’ excitatory visual receptive fields (RFs) which were displaced to the normal retina in the immediate vicinity of the lesion. The presence of ectopic RFs in cells recorded in the cortical LPZ, combined with the presence of normal cortical representation of the part of the retina in the vicinity of the lesion, indicate a clear expansion of the cortical representation of the part of the retina surrounding the lesion. When stimulated via the ectopic RFs, cortical cells exhibited normal orientation tuning and in the case of animals with monocular lesions, the orientation tuning of binocular cells when stimulated via ectopic RFs appeared to be very similar to that when the cells were stimulated via the RFs in the normal, unlesioned eye. In both binocularly and monocularly lesioned animals, the responses evoked by optimal visua; stimuli from the ectopic RFs were substantially weaker than those evoked from their normal counterparts. Similarly, upper velocity limits were significantly lower when visual stimuli were presented via the ectopic RFs. In contrast to cats in which the retinal lesions were made in adulthood, in cats lesioned monocularly in adolescence (8–11 weeks postnatal), both the peak discharge rates and upper velocity limits of responses to photic stimuli presebted via the ectopic RFs were very similar to those to stimuli presented via the normal eye. The intracortical mechanism(s) underlying the long-term cortical plasticity revealed by retinal lesions are likely to be closely linked to the mechanism(s) underlying the short-term reversible enlargement of cortical receptive fields observed with artificial scotomas. Furthermore, a similar putative intracortical mechanism(s) appears to underlie psychophysical phenomena observed in studies of retinal scotomas in humans. Overall, the research reviewd here strongly challenges the view that receptive field of neurons in mammalian visual cortices are ‘hard-wired’.

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Chapter 15 Cortical plasticity revealed by circumscribed retinal lesions or artificial scotomas

Abstract

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Vision Res.

Exp. Eye Res.

Vision Res.

Vision Res.

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Vision Res.

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Exp. Brain Res.

Brain Res.

Vision Res.

Vision Res.

Neuron

Vision Res.

Exp. Eye Res.

Neuron

A quantitative study of the projection area of the central and the paracentral visual field in area 17 of the cat. I. The precision of the topography

Exp. Brain Res.

Stimulus specific responses from beyond the classical receptive field: Neurophysiological mechanisms for local-global comparisons in visual neurons

Annu. Rev. Neurosci.

Kinetic edges become displaced, segregated and invisible

Alterations in GAP-43 and synapsin immunoreactivity provide evidence for synaptic reorganization in adult cat dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus following retinal lesions

Eur. J. Neurosci.

The effects of remote retinal stimulation on the responses of cat retinal ganglion cells

J. Physiol. (Lond.)

Reversal of the physiological effects of monocular deprivation in kittens: further evidence for a sensitive period

J. Physiol. (Lond.)

The physiological effects of monocular deprivation and their reversal in the monkey's visual cortex

J. Physiol. (Lond.)

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Termination of afferent axons in macaque striate cortex

J. Neurosci.

Enhanced excitability of the human visual cortex induced by short-term light deprivation

Cereb. Cortex

Horizontal propagation of visual activity in the synaptic integration field of area 17 neurons

Science

Effects of selective pressure block of Y-type optic nerve fibres on receptive-field properties of neurons in the striate cortex of the cat

Vis. Neurosci.

Reorganization of neural circuits in area 17 of the cat following retinal lesions in adolescent kittens

J. Physiol. (Lond.)

Curious cortical change (news and views)

Nature

Monocular focal retinal lesions induce short-term topographic in adult visual cortex

Plasticity in adult cat visual cortex (area 17) following circumscribed monocular lesions of all retinal layers

J. Physiol. (Lond.)

Asult plasticity in the visual system

Can. J. Physiol. Pharmacol.

Receptive-field properties of deafferentated visual cortical neurons after topographic map reorganization in adult cats

J. Neurosci.

Immunocytochemical localization of basic fibroblast growth factor and glial fibrillary acidic protein after laser photocoagulation in the Royal College of Surgeons rat

Aust. N. Z. J. Ophthalmol.

Response of neurons in the cat's lateral geniculate nucleus to moving bars of different length

J. Neurosci.

On the effects of looking at the sun

Scanning characters and reading with a central scotoma

Am. J. Optom. Physiol. Opt.

Axonal sprouting accompanies functional reorganization in adult cat striate cortex

Nature

Topographic reorganization in the striate cortex of the adult cat and monkey is cortically mediated

J. Neurosci.

Receptive field expansion in adult visual cortex is linked to dynamic changes in strength of cortical connections

J. Neurophysiol.

Topography of contextual modulations mediated by short-range interactions in primary visual cortex

Nature

Responses of cells in monkey visual cortex during perceptual filling-in of an artificial scotoma

Nature

Receptive field structure in the visual cortex: does selective stimulation induce plasticity?

Spatial and temporal properties of X and Y cells in the cat lateral geniculate nucleus

J. Physiol. (Lond.)

The mechanism of peripherally evoked responses in retinal ganglion cells

J. Physiol. (Lond.)

Vision with a stabilized retinal image

Nature (Lond.)