A Simple Rule for Dendritic Spine and Axonal Bouton Formation Can Account for Cortical Reorganization after Focal Retinal Lesions
Figure 8
Network recovery is associated with a remapping of the initial spatial input representation.
A) In the model, the color code represents the spatial location of the input that the so-colored neuron was strongest responding to before the lesion (left column). The LPZ appears black early after the lesion (middle column), since neurons in the LPZ are deprived of any external input and horizontal connections are not strong enough to cause supra-threshold activation. Late after the lesion (right column), increased horizontal input to the LPZ contributed to an enlargement of representations from the peri-LPZ into the LPZ and thereby to a ‘filling’ of the LPZ with adjacent representations. Note the color gradients from top to bottom for all six columns in each of the three panels in A. Also compare Fig. S1. B) Retinotopic remapping in mice before lesion (left panel), at day 7 (middle panel) and at day 17 (right panel). (Reprinted by permission from Macmillan Publishers Ltd: Nature Neuroscience: Keck T et al. (2008) Massive restructuring of neuronal circuits during functional reorganization of adult visual cortex. Nat Neurosci 11:1162–1167, copyright 2008). In V1 of the mouse cortex, colors visualize the spatial position of the retinal input. Areas are colored according to which input they respond most strongly to. White dashed lines indicate the LPZ. Scale bar represents .