Gordon B, BreMiller R
Institute of Neuroscience, University of Oregon, Eugene 97403.
Exp Brain Res. 1992;92(1):79-84. doi: 10.1007/BF00230385.
Monocular deprivation (MD) of young kittens decreases the response of visual cortex cells to the deprived eye. In addition, it causes cell shrinkage in the layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) innervated by the deprived eye. To determine whether the shrinkage of LGN cells is dependent upon changes in the response of cortical cells, we compared LGN cell shrinkage in three groups of MD animals. Two were controls; the third received lesions of fibers bringing norepinephrine and acetylcholine to the visual cortex. This procedure greatly attenuated the effect of MD on the visual cortex. The amount of LGN cell shrinkage did not differ among the three groups. We conclude that LGN shrinkage after MD does not require a dramatic loss of cortical cell responses to the deprived eye.
幼年小猫的单眼剥夺（MD）会降低视觉皮层细胞对被剥夺眼的反应。此外，它会导致外侧膝状体核（LGN）中由被剥夺眼支配的层中的细胞萎缩。为了确定LGN细胞的萎缩是否依赖于皮层细胞反应的变化，我们比较了三组MD动物中LGN细胞的萎缩情况。两组为对照组；第三组接受了将去甲肾上腺素和乙酰胆碱输送到视觉皮层的纤维损伤。这个过程大大减弱了MD对视觉皮层的影响。三组之间LGN细胞萎缩的程度没有差异。我们得出结论，MD后LGN的萎缩并不需要皮层细胞对被剥夺眼的反应大幅丧失。
