Abstract
We review the plastic changes of the prefrontal cortex of the rat in response to a wide range of experiences including sensory and motor experience, gonadal hormones, psychoactive drugs, learning tasks, stress, social experience, metaplastic experiences, and brain injury. Our focus is on synaptic changes (dendritic morphology and spine density) in pyramidal neurons and the relationship to behavioral changes. The most general conclusion we can reach is that the prefrontal cortex is extremely plastic and that the medial and orbital prefrontal regions frequently respond very differently to the same experience in the same brain and the rules that govern prefrontal plasticity appear to differ for those of other cortical regions.
Highlights
We review the plastic changes of the prefrontal cortex of the rat in response to a wide range of experiences including sensory and motor experience, gonadal hormones, psychoactive drugs, learning tasks, stress, social experience, metaplastic experiences, and brain injury
How do these regions relate to the granular cortex of primates? There is little doubt that primates have evolved frontal regions that are likely linked to the massive expansion of the cortical sensory maps (e.g., Pandya and Yeterian, 1990) and it has been argued strongly that many of these regions, and especially those forming the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, are unique in primates (e.g., Preuss, 1995; Wise, 2008; Wallis, 2011)
Because our focus here is on prefrontal cortex, we will focus on changes in behavior and in synaptic organization inferred from Golgi-type analyses of changes in dendritic organization and spine density
Summary
Canadian Centre for Behavioural Neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, AB, Canada. In the past 40 years the lesions have become more specific to subregions (e.g., Euston et al, 2012) but the general point is the same: the medial and orbital regions have distinctly different, and complementary, functions How do these regions relate to the granular cortex of primates? There is little doubt that primates have evolved frontal regions that are likely linked to the massive expansion of the cortical sensory maps (e.g., Pandya and Yeterian, 1990) and it has been argued strongly that many of these regions, and especially those forming the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, are unique in primates (e.g., Preuss, 1995; Wise, 2008; Wallis, 2011) This is likely but it is likely that the primate frontal granular regions as well as other frontal regions evolved from a common ancestor that gave rise to the rodent “prefrontal” cortex (e.g., Kolb, 2007). Where possible we supplement these studies with other types of information, including epigenetic changes
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