Experience-dependent plasticity in early stations of sensory processing in mature brains: effects of environmental enrichment on dendrite measures in trigeminal nuclei.

ABSTRACT: Nervous systems respond with structural changes to environmental changes even in adulthood. In recent years, experience-dependent structural plasticity was shown not to be restricted to the cerebral cortex, as it also occurs at subcortical and even peripheral levels. We have previously shown that two populations of trigeminal nuclei neurons, trigeminothalamic barrelette neurons of the principal nucleus (Pr5), and intersubnuclear neurons in the caudal division of the spinal trigeminal nucleus (Sp5C) that project to Pr5 underwent morphometric and topological changes in their dendritic trees after a prolonged total or partial loss of afferent input from the vibrissae. Here we examined whether and what structural alterations could be elicited in the dendritic trees of the same cell populations

SUBMITTER: Martin YB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8930882 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature