1. Critical-period plasticity in the visual cortex
- Author
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Christiaan N. Levelt, Mark Hübener, and Netherlands Institute for Neuroscience (NIN)
- Subjects
Aging ,Models, Neurological ,Nonsynaptic plasticity ,Synaptic Transmission ,03 medical and health sciences ,0302 clinical medicine ,Homeostatic plasticity ,Metaplasticity ,Neuroplasticity ,medicine ,Animals ,Humans ,030304 developmental biology ,Visual Cortex ,0303 health sciences ,Neuronal Plasticity ,Homosynaptic plasticity ,General Neuroscience ,Critical Period, Psychological ,Neural Inhibition ,Dominance, Ocular ,Monocular deprivation ,Visual cortex ,medicine.anatomical_structure ,Developmental plasticity ,Psychology ,Neuroscience ,030217 neurology & neurosurgery ,Signal Transduction - Abstract
In many regions of the developing brain, neuronal circuits undergo defined phases of enhanced plasticity, termed critical periods. Work in the rodent visual cortex has led to important insights into the cellular and molecular mechanisms regulating the timing of the critical period. Although there is little doubt that the maturation of specific inhibitory circuits plays a key role in the opening of the critical period in the visual cortex, it is less clear what puts an end to it. In this review, we describe the established mechanisms and point out where more experimental work is needed. We also show that plasticity in the visual cortex is present well before, and long after, the peak of the critical period.
- Published
- 2012
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