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Crossmodal changes in the somatosensory vibrissa/barrel system of visually deprived animals

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Rauschecker,  JP
Former Department Structure and Function of Natural Nerve-Net , Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;

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Tjan,  B
Former Department Structure and Function of Natural Nerve-Net , Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;

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Egert,  U
Former Department Structure and Function of Natural Nerve-Net , Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;
Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Max Planck Society;

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Citation

Rauschecker, J., Tjan, B., Korte, M., & Egert, U. (1992). Crossmodal changes in the somatosensory vibrissa/barrel system of visually deprived animals. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 89(11), 5063-5067. doi:10.1073/pnas.89.11.5063.


Cite as: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0006-3A41-0
Abstract
Cats deprived of vision from birth adapt remarkably well to their situation and show little behavioral impairment. They seem to compensate for their lack of vision by relying more on their auditory and tactile senses. We report here that the facial vibrissae, which are most important for tactile orientation in many animals, show supernormal growth in both cats and mice that have been deprived of vision from birth. Furthermore, the whisker representation in the somatosensory cortical barrel field shows a concomitant enlargement in binocularly enucleated mice: individual barrels are expanded in size by up to one-third. The increased use of the vibrissae in visually deprived animals may stimulate both their own growth and, via activation of the respective neural pathways, the expansion of their central representation.