Intrinsic signal imaging of deprivation-induced contraction of whisker representations in rat somatosensory cortex.

ABSTRACT: In classical sensory cortical map plasticity, the representation of deprived or underused inputs contracts within cortical sensory maps, whereas spared inputs expand. Expansion of spared inputs occurs preferentially into nearby cortical columns representing temporally correlated spared inputs, suggesting that expansion involves correlation-based learning rules at cross-columnar synapses. It is unknown whether deprived representations contract in a similar anisotropic manner, which would implicate similar learning rules and sites of plasticity. We briefly deprived D-row whiskers in 20-day-old rats, so that each deprived whisker had deprived (D-row) and spared (C- and E-row) neighbors. Intrinsic signal optical imaging revealed that D-row deprivation weakened and contracted the functional rep

SUBMITTER: Drew PJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2638790 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature