Cell growth in the lateral geniculate nucleus of kittens following the opening or closing of one eye

Abstract

Closing one eye of kittens at 23 days after birth resulted in paler Nissl staining of the deprived cells in the lateral geniculate nucleus (LGN) that was detectable two days later. Differences between the two sides of the brain in mean cell area increased to a peak in binocular lamina A at 4--6 days after eyelid suture, and then fell to a trough at eight days before rising progressively to a higher level at 31 days. In lamina A1 the peak and trough were later. Opening one eye of kittens after 23 days of binocular closure from birth resulted in more intense Nissl staining of the stimulated cells in the LGN that was detectable four days later. The stimulated cells grew faster than the cells connected to the eye that remained closed, and this differential growth reached a peak at 17 days in binocular lamina A and at 21 days in lamina A1 before falling to a trough at 26--31 days. These results are compared with the time course of anabolic changes that have been measured in other neurons during stimulation. The coefficient of variation of cell size was computed and found to be slightly decreased for deprived cells and increased for stimulated cells. This suggests that larger cells changes their sizes proportionately more than smaller cells. The cells were measured in fronzen sections without shrinkage, and the areas are at least 25% larger than those reported previously after paraffin or celloidin embedding.

The visual system of the cat

“…Subsequent work (Guillery & Stelzner, 1970) has shown that this morphological effect of monocular deprivation is largely confined to the binocular portion of the lateral geniculate nucleus; cell size in the monocular crescent of the deprived lamina is more nearly normal. Other recent work (Oursteler, Garey, & Movshon, 1976;Hickey, Spear, & Kratz, 1977;Movshon & Oursteler, 1976;Wan & Cragg, 1976) has confirmed and extended these findings concerning the effects of monocular deprivation on LGN cell size. In contrast, binocular deprivation (via either bilateral lid suture or dark rearing) produces only a transitory retardation in LGN cell growth, with neurons eventually achieving almost normal size (Guillery, 1973;Hickey et al, 1977;Kalil, 1978).…”

Cytoskeleton alteration correlates with gross structural plasticity in the cat lateral geniculate nucleus

“…It is more likely that the imbalance in visually-evoked activity, rather than the total input, is involved in mediating the eye-specific loss of neurofilament labeling; perhaps in the same way that it is thought to produce a change in cell size following monocular deprivatioñ Guillery, 1972;Cabelli et al, 1995;Riddle et al, 1995!. Results from this study are consistent with what is known of the cytological effects of monocular deprivation in the LGN, and raise the possibility that cytoskeleton alteration is involved in mediating these changes. Neurons in the LGN have been shown to respond rapidly to monocular deprivation, with the cross-sectional area of deprived somata being noticeably smaller than non-deprived somata after as little as 3-4 days of deprivation~Hubel & Wiesel, 1970;Wan & Cragg, 1976!. Deprivation also produces smaller axon terminals of corresponding LGN neurons, which exhibit marked transneuronal atrophy after 6 days of monocular lid suturẽ Antonini & Stryker, 1993!. Although currently not understood, the cellular events that permit these morphological changes should be found in brain regions spatially coincident with changes in cell structure, and ought to be evident at least during the initiation of structural modification.…”

“…While shifts in ocularity in the visual cortex can be measured physiologically after 6 h of monocular deprivation~Mioche & Singer, 1989!, the accompanying gross structural changes of LGN neurons become evident only upon deprivation for 3-4 days Hubel & Wiesel, 1970;Wan & Cragg, 1976!. The physiological shift of ocular dominance induced by 24 h of monocular deprivation has been shown to overlap with the molecular "fingerprint" of long-term depression~LTD!~Heynen et al, 2003!.…”

Cell size changes in the lateral geniculate nuclei of normal and monocularly deprived cats treated with 6-hydroxydopamine and/or norepinephrine

“…6, June 1982 1980) or only being reflected in geniculate cell size after a delay of several weeks (Spear and Hickey, 1979;however, see Diirsteller et al, 1976). There is evidence here and elsewhere (for example, see Hubel and Wiesel, 1970;Wan and Cragg, 1976;LeVay et al, 1980) to show that 1 week of lid suture can result in quite obvious anatomical changes in the visual system, if the deprivation is begun early. However, the time of onset of the lid suture is a critical factor since short periods of deprivation are not as effective when begun late in the "critical period" (for example, see Blakemore and Van Sluyters, 1974;LeVay et al, 1980).…”