| Project/Area Number |
12680795
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
神経・脳内生理学
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| Research Institution | Osaka University |
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Principal Investigator |
HATA Yoshio Osaka University, Graduate School of Medicine, Associate Professor, 医学系研究科, 助教授 (40212146)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2000 – 2001
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2001)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥3,100,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,100,000)
Fiscal Year 2001: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,300,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,800,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000)
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| Keywords | VISUAL CORTEX / OCULAR DOMINANCE / VISUAL DEPRIVATION / DEVELOPMENT / CAT / LONG-TERM POTENTIATION |
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| Research Abstract |
Binocular visual responsiveness of neurons in visual cortex of cats, monkeys and other mammals including humans can be changed by monocular visual deprivation in the critical period of postnatal development, one of the best-known examples of experience-dependent modification of brain function.
It is hypothesized that afferents from each eye compete with one another for synaptic connections with cortical neurons so that less active afferents from the deprived eye fail to maintain the connections, i.e., balance between activities of both afferents is important to determine the fate of each eye-specific pathway.
This synaptic competition hypothesis has been supported by various types of deprivation experiments in kittens. If such a competition hypothesis is valid, then an increase in inputs from one eye instead of decrease due to deprivation should also change binocular responsiveness of cortical neurons. Otherwise the deprivation-induced change might be due to "disuse" weakening of responsiveness.
However, the hypothesis has never been tested with such a monocular activation paradigm. In the present project, we activated one of the optic nerves by electrical stimulation in behaving kittens for 2 days, and found that such a chronic, monocular activation induced a shift in ocular dominance of visual responses of cortical neurons.
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