Plasticity in adult mouse visual cortex following optic nerve injury

Vasalauskaite, Asta, Morgan, James E. ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8920-1065 and Sengpiel, Frank ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7060-1851 2019. Plasticity in adult mouse visual cortex following optic nerve injury. Cerebral Cortex 29 (4) , pp. 1767-1777. 10.1093/cercor/bhy347

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Abstract

Optic nerve (ON) injury is an established model of axonal injury which results in retrograde degeneration and death of retinal ganglion cells as well anterograde loss of transmission and Wallerian degeneration of the injured axons. While the local impact of ON crush has been extensively documented we know comparatively little about the functional changes that occur in higher visual structures such as primary visual cortex (V1). We explored the extent of adult cortical plasticity using ON crush in aged mice. V1 function of the contralateral hemisphere was assessed longitudinally by intrinsic signal imaging and 2-photon calcium imaging before and after ON crush. Functional imaging demonstrated an immediate shift in V1 ocular dominance towards the ipsilateral, intact eye, due to the expected almost complete loss of responses to contralateral eye stimulation. Surprisingly, within 2 weeks we observed a delayed increase in ipsilateral eye responses. Additionally, spontaneous activity in V1 was reduced, similar to the lesion projection zone after retinal lesions. The observed changes in V1 activity indicate that severe ON injury in adulthood evokes cortical plasticity not only cross-modally but also within the visual cortex; this plasticity may be best compared with that seen after retinal lesions.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Optometry and Vision Sciences Biosciences Neuroscience and Mental Health Research Institute (NMHRI)
Additional Information:	This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
ISSN:	1047-3211
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	11 December 2018
Date of Acceptance:	23 December 2018
Last Modified:	06 May 2023 05:16
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/117567

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