Vasalauskaite, A. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2023

Experience dependent plasticity of higher visual cortical areas in the mouse

Introduction ABSTRACT Introduction Materials and Methods Results Discussion CRediT authorship contribution... Funding References Since the pioneering work by Hubel and Wiesel on cats and monkeys in the 1960s and 1970s (Wiesel and Hubel, 1963; Hubel et al., 1977) ocular dominance (OD) plasticity has become one of the classic paradigms for the study of experience-dependent brain plasticity. Occluding one eye by monocular deprivation (MD) shifts responses of visual cortical neurons towards the open eye, in particular during a critical period early in life Hubel Wiesel (Hubel and Wiesel, 1970; Olson and Freeman, 1978). It also results in a substantial loss of visual acuity in the deprived eye ( ...

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2019

Stable encoding of visual cues in the mouse retrosplenial cortex

The rodent retrosplenial cortex functions as an integrative hub for sensory and motor signals, serving roles in both navigation and memory. While retrosplenial cortex (RSC) is reciprocally connected with the sensory cortex, the form in which sensory information is represented in the retrosplenial cortex and how it interacts with behavioural state is unclear. Here, we used 2-photon cellular imaging of neural activity of putative excitatory (CaMKII expressing) and inhibitory (parvalbumin expressing) neurons to measure visual and running evoked activity in RSC and compare it to primary visual cortex (V1). We found that stimulus position and orientation information was preserved between V1 and RSC, and additionally that positional information was organised topographically. Stimulus directional preference was biased towards nasal-temporal flow. Locomotion modulation of activity of single neurons, both in darkness and light, was also more pronounced in RSC than V1, and strongest in parvalbumin-positive neurons. Longitudinal measurements of single neurons showed that these response features were stably maintained over many weeks. These data provide evidence for stable representations of visual cues in retrosplenial cortex which are highly spatially selective. These may provide sensory data to contribute to the formation of memories of spatial information.

neuroscience↗