Organization of the cat's lateral geniculate nucleus following interruption of prenatal binocular competition.

In adult cats which had an eye removed at least two weeks before birth the remaining retina projects to the entire ipsilateral and contralateral lateral geniculate nucleus. In these prenatally enucleated animals, all lateral geniculate neurons responded apparently normally to visual stimuli and retinotopy also appeared to be normal. These findings demonstrate that termination of in utero binocular competition induces marked morphological changes in the visual system, but the functional organization of the major retino-recipient structure develops normally.