Orientation Plasticity in Visual Cortex of Mice Reared under Single-Orientation Exposure

To examine whether orientation selectivity in the mouse visual cortex can change depending on visual experience, we reared juvenile and adult mice under single-orientation exposure using cylindrical-lens-fitted goggles that extremely elongate visual images vertically. Immediately after goggle rearing, we performed optical imaging of intrinsic signals in the visual cortex of the mouse, while presenting 6 oriented grating stimuli. The distribution of preferred orientations was markedly biased toward the exposed vertical orientation in juvenile goggle-reared mice, whereas the distribution in normally reared mice showed a maximum at horizontal orientation and a minimum at vertical orientation. In contrast, no significant differences in the orientation distribution were found between 1-week goggle-reared and normally reared adult mice. However, in 2- or 3-week goggle-reared adult mice, the relative area maximally responding to the vertical orientation was slightly larger than that in normally reared adult mice whereas the horizontal bias was preserved. The present study demonstrated that postnatal visual experience can modify orientation selectivity in both juvenile and adult mice.