title: Rapid adult experience-dependent anatomical plasticity in layer IV of primary somatosensory cortex.
abstract: Sensory deprivation, such as whisker deprivation, is one of the most common paradigms used to examine experience-dependent plasticity. Many of these studies conducted during development have demonstrated anatomical and synaptic neocortical plasticity with varying lengths of deprivation (for review, see Holtmaat and Svoboda, 2009). However, to date, there have been few studies exploring brief periods of experience-dependent neocortical plasticity in adulthood, similar to that observed from learning and memory paradigms (Siucinska and Kossut, 1996, 2004; Galvez et al., 2006; Chau et al., 2013). Examining both synapsin I and Golgi-Cox stained neurons in primary somatosensory cortex of unilaterally whisker-deprived adult mice, the current study demonstrates that 5 days of whisker deprivation results in more synapses in spared barrels and reduced synapses in deprived barrels. To our knowledge, this is the first study to characterize anatomical changes in layer IV of primary somatosensory cortex after a brief period of sensory deprivation in adulthood. Furthermore, findings from the present study suggest that analyses from prolonged periods of either sensory deprivation or stimulation during adulthood are missing forms of plasticity that could provide better insight into various cognitive processes, such as learning and memory.
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. Electronic address: chau6@illinois.edu.
authors.forename: Lily S
authors.initials: LS
authors.lastname: Chau
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
authors.forename: Omar
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Akhtar
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
authors.forename: Vijay
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Mohan
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
authors.forename: Athanasios
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Kondilis
authors.affiliation: Psychology Department University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA; Neuroscience Program University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA.
authors.forename: Roberto
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Galvez
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D000818:Animals; D049229:Dendritic Spines / Q000502:physiology / Q000648:ultrastructure; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV / Q000378:metabolism; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation / Q000502:physiology*; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D009473:Neuronal Plasticity / Q000502:physiology*; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D010812:Physical Stimulation; D012683:Sensory Deprivation / Q000502:physiology; D016622:Silver Staining; D013003:Somatosensory Cortex / Q000166:cytology* / Q000502:physiology; D016704:Synapsins / Q000378:metabolism; D013997:Time Factors; D014738:Vibrissae / Q000294:innervation
chemical_list: D016704:Synapsins; D003576:Electron Transport Complex IV
keywords: Barrel cortex; Deprivation; Golgi-cox; PMBSF; Synapsin I; Whisker