Lateral geniculate neurons projecting to primary visual cortex show ocular dominance plasticity in adult mice

摘要

The change in OD after monocular deprivation (MD) is one of the most prominent models of experience-dependent plasticity in the neocortex. In carnivores and primates, OD plasticity is limited to a critical period during late postnatal development1-2. In mice, OD shifts can also be induced in adult animals3"5. Whereas juvenile and adult MD is known to evoke plastic changes in the binocular part of primary visual cortex (Vl)4>6>7, OD changes in the dLGN of the thalamus have not been reported to our knowledge89. Although a single study has previously described receptive field plasticity in the dLGN of adult cats10, the apparent lack of OD plasticity, along with similar findings in other cortical areas11, led to the prevailing view that after an early developmental phase of retinal12 and thalamic changes13"16, both critical-period and adult plasticity in the visual system are exclusively cortical17. However, none of the recordings in dLGN, as far as we are aware, have been performed chronically with single-cell resolution. Hence, changes in the eye-specific responsiveness of individual thalamic cells projecting to visual cortex, such as the recruitment of initially inactive neurons and silencing of active neurons, could have easily been missed.