Effects of reduced numbers of lateral geniculate Y-cells on development of ocular dominance in cat striate cortex.
In the companion study (Dev. Brain Res., 34 (1987) 223-233), we showed that a monocular injection of antibodies against ox large retinal ganglion cells produces a 53% (low concentration) to 82% (high concentration) loss of Y-cells in lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) layers A and A1 that receive inputs from the antibody-injected eye. At the same time, the percentage of LGN X-cells is unaffected. In the present study, we investigated the effect of this monocular antibody-induced reduction of LGN Y-cells on the development of ocular dominance in striate cortex. Four-week-old kittens were given an intraocular injection of either a low (110 micrograms/33 microliter volume) or a high (333 micrograms/33 microliter volume) concentration of antibodies and single-cell recordings were carried out in striate cortex 33-65 weeks later. Following an injection of either antibody concentration, we found only slight abnormalities in striate cortex ocular dominance compared to normal adult cats. There was a small, but significant, decrease in the percentage of binocularly driven cells and a concomitant increase in the percentage of cells driven exclusively by the normal or control-injected eye. No ocular dominance abnormalities were found in kittens injected monocularly with control gamma-globulins, indicating that the changes are due to effects of the antibodies. The changes in cortical ocular dominance produced by early antibody treatment are very different from those produced by rearing with monocular deprivation (MD) despite a similar loss of LGN Y-cells in the two conditions.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)
D000818:Animals; D002415:Cats; D002452:Cell Count; D004292:Dominance, Cerebral / Q000502:physiology*; D012160:Retina / Q000502:physiology*; D012165:Retinal Ganglion Cells / Q000166:cytology / Q000502:physiology*; D012683:Sensory Deprivation / Q000502:physiology*; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000254:growth & development*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000254:growth & development