Ocular Dominance Plasticity of Areas 17 and 21a in the Cat

Jian Wang; Zheyi Ni; Anqi Jin; Tiandong Yu; Hongbo Yu

doi:10.3389/fnins.2019.01039

Ocular Dominance Plasticity of Areas 17 and 21a in the Cat

Front Neurosci. 2019 Oct 11:13:1039. doi: 10.3389/fnins.2019.01039. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Jian Wang¹, Zheyi Ni¹, Anqi Jin¹, Tiandong Yu¹, Hongbo Yu¹

Affiliation

¹ School of Life Sciences, State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology, Collaborative Innovation Center for Brain Science, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.

Abstract

The visual system is organized in a parallel and hierarchical architecture. However, the plasticity in hierarchical neural networks is controversial across different response features and at different levels. In this study, we recorded areas 17 and 21a, earlier and intermediate stages of the visual cortex in the cat, respectively, by single-unit recording and intrinsic-signal optical imaging. We found that ocular dominance (OD) plasticity evoked by monocular deprivation (MD) was stronger in area 21a than in area 17 in the critical period (CP), and this plasticity became weaker but still persisted in area 21a while it disappeared in area 17 beyond the CP. These results suggest a diversified functional plasticity along the visual information processing pathways in a hierarchical neural network.

Keywords: area 21a; critical period; hierarchical neural network; ocular dominance plasticity; optical imaging.