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Abstract

The ability of networks of neurons to undergo plastic rearrangement represents a general organizing principle of the nervous system and has been demonstrated to persist in adulthood in several areas, including motor, visual, auditory and somatosensory cortex. To date animal models appropriate for studying recovery after cerebrovascular injury remain scarce. Paradigms developed in the rodent, though valuable, are far removed from human physiology and have restricted behavioral repertoires, which limits the type of questions they can be used to address. By contrast, a macaque model of cortical reorganization based on fMRI is closer to human physiology, has a rich behavioral repertoire and can be compared directly to fMRI results from human patients. This makes it highly versatile for testing experimental hypotheses on the nature of plasticity, and for gauging the global effect of pharmacologic or rehabilitative manipulations on neuronal recovery after cortical injury. In my talk, I shall describe the emergence of macaque fMRI as an animal paradigm/tool for studying cortical plasticity, and expound on the two examples from the retina, and V1 lesions.