The Ferret as a Model for Visual System Development and Plasticity

Sharma, Jitendra; Sur, Mriganka

doi:10.1002/9781118782699.ch30

Cited by 8 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 227 publications

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“…Following Ray Guillery's initial observations of a reduced uncrossed projection from the eye to the thalamus in albino ferrets (Guillery, ), he and his co‐workers carried out an anatomical study of the postnatal development of the retinogeniculate pathways in normally pigmented ferrets (Linden, Guillery & Cucchiaro, ). This study led to several other groups adopting this species as a model for investigating the organization, development and plasticity of the visual system (reviewed in Sharma & Sur, ), often initially as an alternative to the previously well‐studied cat, but also because its visual system is more advanced than that of rodents. Indeed, the primary visual cortex (V1) in ferrets contains columnar maps of stimulus features, such as orientation selectivity (White, Bosking & Fitzpatrick, ), that are typical of primates and other carnivores (Nauhaus, Benucci, Carandini & Ringach, ) and usually thought to be lacking in rodents (Ohki, Chung, Ch'ng, Kara & Reid, ).…”

Section: Animal Models Of Sensory Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development, organization and plasticity of auditory circuits: Lessons from a cherished colleague

Lohse

Bajo

King

2018

Eur J of Neuroscience

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Ray Guillery was a neuroscientist known primarily for his ground-breaking studies on the development of the visual pathways and subsequently on the nature of thalamocortical processing loops. The legacy of his work, however, extends well beyond the visual system. Thanks to Ray Guillery's pioneering anatomical studies, the ferret has become a widely used animal model for investigating the development and plasticity of sensory processing. This includes our own work on the auditory system, where experiments in ferrets have revealed the role of sensory experience during development in shaping the neural circuits responsible for sound localization, as well as the capacity of the mature brain to adapt to changes in inputs resulting from hearing loss. Our research has also built on Ray Guillery's ideas about the possible functions of the massive descending projections that link sensory areas of the cerebral cortex to the thalamus and other subcortical targets, by demonstrating a role for corticothalamic feedback in the perception of complex sounds and for corticollicular projection neurons in learning to accommodate altered auditory spatial cues. Finally, his insights into the organization and functions of transthalamic corticocortical connections have inspired a raft of research, including by our own laboratory, which has attempted to identify how information flows through the thalamus.

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Section: Animal Models Of Sensory Developmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

Development, organization and plasticity of auditory circuits: Lessons from a cherished colleague

Lohse

Bajo

King

2018

Eur J of Neuroscience

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“…Ferrets are used in neuroplasticity studies because much of neural development occurs postnatally (Sharma and Sur, 2014). In such studies, the normal course of development is altered for the purpose of evaluating hypothesized outcomes.…”

Section: Neonatal Anesthesiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Preanesthesia, Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Euthanasia

Flecknell

Lofgren

Dyson

et al. 2015

Laboratory Animal Medicine

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“…During the development of sensory cortices, the onset of experience transforms immature cortical networks into mature representations that support reliable discrimination of behaviorally relevant stimuli. The representation of orientation in ferret primary visual cortex (V1) serves as an ideal model system to explore the mechanisms responsible for the development of cortical representations 1 . In ferrets 2 , as in most highly visual mammals including primates 3,4 , this representation exhibits an orderly spatial topology-a modular clustering of cortical neurons with similar orientation preferences, that is maintained across cortical depth as isoorientation columns.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Coherent cortical representations develop after experience via feedforward-recurrent circuit alignment

Lempel

Fitzpatrick

2023

Preprint

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Selective and reliable cortical sensory representations depend on synaptic interactions between feedforward inputs, conveying information from lower levels of the sensory pathway, and recurrent networks that reciprocally connect neurons functioning at the same hierarchical level. Here we explore the development of feedforward/recurrent interactions in primary visual cortex of the ferret that is responsible for the representation of orientation, focusing on the feedforward inputs from cortical layer 4 and its relation to the modular recurrent network in layer 2/3 before and after the onset of visual experience. Using simultaneous laminar electrophysiology and calcium imaging we found that in experienced animals, individual layer 4 and layer 2/3 neurons exhibit strongly correlated responses with the modular recurrent network structure in layer 2/3. Prior to experience, layer 2/3 neurons exhibit comparable modular correlation structure, but this correlation structure is missing for individual layer 4 neurons. Further analysis of the receptive field properties of layer 4 neurons in naive animals revealed that they exhibit very poor orientation tuning compared to layer 2/3 neurons at this age, and this is accompanied by the lack of spatial segregation of ON and OFF subfields, the definitive property of layer 4 simple cells in experienced animals. Analysis of the response dynamics of layer 2/3 neurons with whole-cell patch recordings confirms that individual layer 2/3 neurons in naive animals receive poorly-selective feedforward input that does not align with the orientation preference of the layer 2/3 responses. Further analysis reveals that the misaligned feedforward input is the underlying cause of reduced selectivity and increased response variability that is evident in the layer 2/3 responses of naive animals. Altogether, our experiments indicate that the onset of visual experience is accompanied by a critical refinement in the responses of layer 4 neurons and the alignment of feedforward and recurrent networks that increases the selectivity and reliability of the representation of orientation in V1.

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The Ferret as a Model for Visual System Development and Plasticity

Cited by 8 publications

References 227 publications

Development, organization and plasticity of auditory circuits: Lessons from a cherished colleague

Development, organization and plasticity of auditory circuits: Lessons from a cherished colleague

Preanesthesia, Anesthesia, Analgesia, and Euthanasia

Coherent cortical representations develop after experience via feedforward-recurrent circuit alignment

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