Development, critical period plasticity, and adult reorganizations of mammalian somatosensory systems.

This review covers recent progress in three major areas of investigation in somatosensory systems: development, developmental plasticity and functional reorganization. Important findings relate to the development of periphery-related patterning in thalamic afferents to somatosensory cortex, the controversial role of neural activity in the development and plasticity of periphery-related afferent patterning in the brainstem and cortex, experience-dependent reorganizations in adult somatosensory cortex, and the locus of these changes.