Distinct sensory requirements for unimodal and cross-modal homeostatic synaptic plasticity.
Loss of a sensory modality elicits both unimodal changes in the deprived cortex and cross-modal alterations in the remaining sensory systems. Unimodal changes are proposed to recruit the deprived cortex for processing the remaining senses, while cross-modal changes are thought to refine processing of spared senses. Hence coordinated unimodal and cross-modal changes are likely beneficial. Despite this expectation, we report in mice that losing behaviorally relevant patterned vision is sufficient to trigger cross-modal synaptic changes in the primary somatosensory cortex barrel fields, but is insufficient to drive unimodal synaptic plasticity in visual cortex (V1), which requires a complete loss of visual activity. In addition, cross-modal changes depend on whisker inputs. Our results demonstrate that unimodal and cross-modal synaptic plasticity occur independently of each other and rely on distinct sensory requirements.
The Solomon H. Snyder Department of Neuroscience, Zanvyl-Krieger Mind/Brain Institute, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland 21218, USA.
Kaiwen
K
He
Emily
E
Petrus
Nicholas
N
Gammon
Hey-Kyoung
HK
Lee
D000818:Animals; D001766:Blindness / Q000503:physiopathology; D003624:Darkness; D019706:Excitatory Postsynaptic Potentials / Q000502:physiology; D015353:Eye Enucleation; D005143:Eyelids / Q000502:physiology; D005260:Female; D006706:Homeostasis / Q000502:physiology*; D066298:In Vitro Techniques; D008297:Male; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D018408:Patch-Clamp Techniques; D018091:Receptors, AMPA / Q000502:physiology; D011999:Recruitment, Neurophysiological / Q000502:physiology; D012683:Sensory Deprivation / Q000502:physiology; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000502:physiology; D013569:Synapses / Q000502:physiology*; D014738:Vibrissae / Q000294:innervation; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology
D018091:Receptors, AMPA