Tieman S B, Hirsch H V
J Comp Neurol. 1982 Nov 10;211(4):353-62. doi: 10.1002/cne.902110403.
To determine whether selective exposure to lines of one orientation modifies the shape of the dendritic fields of cells in visual cortex, we examined the dendritic morphology of neurons in area 17 of five normally reared cats, five cats reared viewing only vertical lines, and three cats reared viewing only horizontal lines. Kittens were placed with their mothers into a totally dark room before their eyes had opened. Beginning at 4 weeks of age, the kittens were brought out for daily periods of exposure wearing masks that limited the vision of each eye to a field of three vertical lines or three horizontal lines. After a minimum of 170 hours of exposure, the animals were killed and blocks of visual cortex were impregnated by the Golgi-Kopsch procedure and cut tangential to the pial surface. Complete neurons from layers III and IV were drawn with the aid of a camera lucida, and the orientations of the dendritic fields wer analyzed using Sholl diagrams. In normal cats, the distributions of the orientations of dendritic fields were uniform, whereas in strip-reared cats, the distributions for the layer III pyramidal cells were shifted. The direction of this shift varied with the experience of the cat: In cats reared viewing only vertical lines, the dendritic fields were oriented orthogonal to the representation of the vertical meridian, and in cats reared viewing only horizontal lines, the fields were oriented parallel to the representation of the vertical meridian. In contrast, the distribution of dentritic orientations for the stellate cells was not affected by stripe-rearing. These results demonstrate a morphological effect of early visual experience that is specific to the particular stimulus presented during rearing and suggest that (1) cortical cells differ in the degree to which they can be modified by such experience, and (2) the dendritic morphology of cortical neurons is related to their preferred orientations.
为了确定选择性暴露于一种方向的线条是否会改变视皮层中细胞树突野的形状，我们检查了五只正常饲养的猫、五只仅在饲养过程中观看垂直线条的猫以及三只仅在饲养过程中观看水平线条的猫的17区神经元的树突形态。小猫在眼睛睁开之前就和它们的母亲一起被放置在一个完全黑暗的房间里。从4周龄开始，小猫被带出来，每天戴着面罩暴露一段时间，这些面罩将每只眼睛的视野限制为三条垂直线条或三条水平线条。在至少170小时的暴露之后，将动物处死，视皮层块通过高尔基-科普施方法进行浸染，并切成与软脑膜表面相切的切片。借助于明视野显微镜绘制来自III层和IV层的完整神经元，并使用肖尔图分析树突野的方向。在正常猫中，树突野方向的分布是均匀的，而在条纹饲养的猫中，III层锥体细胞的分布发生了偏移。这种偏移的方向随猫的经历而变化：在仅观看垂直线条饲养的猫中，树突野与垂直子午线的表征方向正交，而在仅观看水平线条饲养的猫中，树突野与垂直子午线的表征方向平行。相比之下，星状细胞的树突方向分布不受条纹饲养的影响。这些结果证明了早期视觉经验的形态学效应，这种效应特定于饲养过程中呈现的特定刺激，并表明（1）皮层细胞在可被这种经验改变的程度上存在差异，以及（2）皮层神经元的树突形态与其偏好的方向有关。
