Sengpiel F, Stawinski P, Bonhoeffer T
Max-Planck-Institut für Neurobiologie, Am Klopferspitz 18a, 82152 München-Martinsried, Germany.
Nat Neurosci. 1999 Aug;2(8):727-32. doi: 10.1038/11192.
Experience is known to affect the development of ocular dominance maps in visual cortex, but it has remained controversial whether orientation preference maps are similarly affected by limiting visual experience to a single orientation early in life. Here we used optical imaging based on intrinsic signals to show that the visual cortex of kittens reared in a striped environment responded to all orientations, but devoted up to twice as much surface area to the experienced orientation as the orthogonal one. This effect is due to an instructive role of visual experience whereby some neurons shift their orientation preferences toward the experienced orientation. Thus, although cortical orientation maps are remarkably rigid in the sense that orientations that have never been seen by the animal occupy a large portion of the cortical territory, visual experience can nevertheless alter neuronal responses to oriented contours.
众所周知，经验会影响视觉皮层中眼优势图谱的发育，但在生命早期将视觉经验限制在单一方向上，方向偏好图谱是否会受到类似影响仍存在争议。在这里，我们使用基于内在信号的光学成像技术来表明，在条纹环境中饲养的小猫的视觉皮层对所有方向都有反应，但与正交方向相比，对经验方向的反应所占用的表面积高达两倍。这种效应是由于视觉经验的指导性作用，即一些神经元将其方向偏好转向经验方向。因此，尽管从动物从未见过的方向占据了大部分皮层区域的意义上来说，皮层方向图谱非常刚性，但视觉经验仍然可以改变神经元对有方向轮廓的反应。
