Short-term plasticity in the human visual thalamus

While there is evidence that the visual cortex retains a potential for plasticity in adulthood, less is known about the subcortical stages of visual processing. Here, we asked whether short-term ocular dominance plasticity affects the human visual thalamus. We addressed this question in normally sig...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:eLife 2022-04, Vol.11
Main Authors: Kurzawski, Jan W, Lunghi, Claudia, Biagi, Laura, Tosetti, Michela, Morrone, Maria Concetta, Binda, Paola
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Cognitive science
Dominance, Ocular
Geniculate Bodies
homeostatic plasticity
Humans
lateral geniculate nucleus
monocular deprivation
Neuronal Plasticity
Neuroscience
pulvinar
Research Advance
Sensory Deprivation
Thalamus
ultra-high field magnetic resonance
Vision, Monocular
visual BOLD responses
Visual Cortex
Visual perception
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Summary:While there is evidence that the visual cortex retains a potential for plasticity in adulthood, less is known about the subcortical stages of visual processing. Here, we asked whether short-term ocular dominance plasticity affects the human visual thalamus. We addressed this question in normally sighted adult humans, using ultra-high field (7T) magnetic resonance imaging combined with the paradigm of short-term monocular deprivation. With this approach, we previously demonstrated transient shifts of perceptual eye dominance and ocular dominance in visual cortex (Binda et al., 2018). Here, we report evidence for short-term plasticity in the ventral division of the pulvinar (vPulv), where the deprived eye representation was enhanced over the nondeprived eye. This vPulv plasticity was similar as previously seen in visual cortex and it was correlated with the ocular dominance shift measured behaviorally. In contrast, there was no effect of monocular deprivation in two adjacent thalamic regions: dorsal pulvinar and Lateral Geniculate Nucleus. We conclude that the visual thalamus retains potential for short-term plasticity in adulthood; the plasticity effect differs across thalamic subregions, possibly reflecting differences in their corticofugal connectivity.
ISSN:2050-084X
2050-084X
DOI:10.7554/eLife.74565