Knudsen E I
Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University School of Medicine, 299 Campus Drive, Fairchild Building D259, Stanford, CA 94305-5125 USA.
Science. 1998 Mar 6;279(5356):1531-3. doi: 10.1126/science.279.5356.1531.
In the process of creating a multimodal map of space, auditory-visual neurons in the optic tectum establish associations between particular values of auditory spatial cues and locations in the visual field. In the barn owl, tectal neurons reveal these associations in the match between their tuning for interaural time differences (ITDs) and the locations of their visual receptive fields (VRFs). In young owls ITD-VRF associations can be adjusted by experience over a wide range, but the range of adjustment normally becomes quite restricted in adults. This normal range of adjustment in adults was greatly expanded in owls that had previously learned abnormal ITD-VRF associations as juveniles. Thus, the act of learning abnormal associations early in life leaves an enduring trace in this pathway that enables unusual functional connections to be reestablished, as needed, in adulthood, even when the associations represented by these connections have not been used for an extended period of time.
在创建多模态空间图谱的过程中，视顶盖中的视听神经元在听觉空间线索的特定值与视野中的位置之间建立关联。在仓鸮中，顶盖神经元在其对耳间时间差（ITD）的调谐与其视觉感受野（VRF）的位置之间的匹配中揭示了这些关联。在幼龄仓鸮中，ITD-VRF关联可以通过广泛的经验进行调整，但在成年仓鸮中，调整范围通常会受到很大限制。在幼年时曾学习过异常ITD-VRF关联的仓鸮中，成年仓鸮这种正常的调整范围会大大扩展。因此，早年学习异常关联的行为会在这条通路中留下持久的痕迹，使得即使这些连接所代表的关联已经很长时间未被使用，成年后仍能根据需要重新建立异常的功能连接。
