The selective effect of visual deprivation on receptive field shape determined neurophysiologically

Abstract

This paper and the succeeding one report an investigation of visual behavior and neurophysiological analysis performed on the same visually deprived animals. One group of kittens was reared from 8 days of age on with the lids of one eye shut for 1–6 months. Another group was reared in total darkness for 12–18 months. After the deprivation period, the b-wave component of the electroretinogram was reduced in magnitude by 40% in the deprived eye when compared to the normal eye. However, temporal resolution and spatial integration were not found to be different in the two eyes. The ERG of the dark-reared cats showed deterioration of temporal resolution. Single-cell recording from the visual cortex of the monocular group showed a drastic reduction in binocular summation. Furthermore, the responses of the binocularly stimulated cells, when obtained, were smaller in number and more easily fatigued when the deprived eye was stimulated than when the experienced eye was stimulated. Cortical cells that could only be driven through the deprived eye had larger receptive fields and were less selective with regard to the shape, orientation, and direction of motion of the stimuli, than cortical cells that could only be driven by the experienced eye. These differences were not present in lateral geniculate cells. We concluded that the lack of pattern vision in one eye of a young kitten induces a selective and rather permanent change in the connections of visual radiation fibers onto cortical cells.