Neonatal enucleation alters functional organization in hamster's lateral posterior nucleus.

In normal hamsters, somatosensory cells comprise 23% of all the units recorded in the lateral posterior nucleus (LP), and such cells tended to be clustered in the ventral part of this nucleus. In animals subjected to removal of both eyes within 12 h of birth, 59% of all LP cells responded to tactile stimuli, and these neurons were distributed evenly throughout the nucleus. This altered sensory organization is consistent with the prior observation that superficial layer collicular cells, whose axons comprise a major input to LP, were responsive to somatosensory stimulation in hamsters which were enucleated at birth.