As the marker for thalamoMetabolism inhibitor cortical synapses (vGlut2; Fremeau et al. 2001; Kaneko and Fujiyama 2002) is correlated with the metabolic CO-staining, the size of the CO-barrel staining can be interpreted as showing the area

innervated by thalamocortical synapses (Louderback et al. 2006). A change in the CO-stained barrel area is shown for the P0 group where the barrel area ratio of spared (C+D row)/deprived (A+B row) increased. A whisker paring protocol similar to the one used in this study has been shown to cause a decrease in the Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical number/density of axonal projections and the spread of activity from a spared to a deprived barrel column (Broser et al. 2008; Wallace and Sakmann 2008). In general, sparing a whisker increases its cortical representation (Simons and Land 1987; Diamond et al. 1993; Glazewski and Fox 1996; Wallace and Fox 1999; Glazewski et al. 2000). In this study, we used a sensory deprivation protocol that Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical caused a reorganization in the relative size of the cortical areas activated by a given whisker, with the aim of studying the behavioral effects of such a change. Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical The changes in the size of the barrel patterns could reflect that the underlying mechanism is an over excitation of an enlarged spared cortical area in combination with a decreased inhibition from the reduced

neighboring sensory-deprived cortical areas. Behavioral performance in the gap-crossing task Changes in the normal sensory-driven development of somatosensory barrel cortex during different periods of development are shown in this study Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical to affect the behavioral strategy the young adult animals use to solve a decision-making task. The behavioral strategy necessary to solve a task can be analyzed in terms of how many times it is necessary to try and how long it takes to solve the task. CD pairing (the C- and the D-row whiskers are spared all other whiskers removed) during the first Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical postnatal week results in a behavior

where the animals make an increased number of shorter duration approaches to the gap (Fig. 3) they also expanded their exploration area close to the gap (Fig. 4). In the P0 group, there was no evident sign of an impaired whisker kinematics as the touch induced modulation of whisker kinematics (Fig. 5), and the number of whisker new contacts made with the target platform did not differ between the control animals and sensory deprived animals. Thus, the observed differences in behavior were more likely due to impaired sensory processing and not due to changes in the sensory input per se. In rats, removing all whiskers for a short period (P0–P3) caused an increase in the barrel size, made the animals reach shorter maximum gap-cross distances, and caused an increased exploratory activity (Lee et al. 2009).