Cortical plasticity following injury in primate visual system

Abstract

Several brain areas are capable of reorganization after injury though the extent and limits of reorganization differ from area to area. Studying the visual system has several advantages: 1) its precise topography increases the sensitivity and specificity of reorganization measurements, 2) the background information that exists about the connectivity pattern and function of visual areas permits the formulation of precise hypotheses about the mechanism of recovery. Understanding the potential for plasticity inherent in different processing levels of the adult visual has potential implications for the rehabilitation of visual system disorders. The aim of this dissertation is to study whether and how much the visual cortex changes following injury at different levels of the visual system. Damage at any level of the visual system induces changes in anatomy, connectivity and function throughout the rest of the system. Using fMRI we have the advantage of observing changes over the entire brain that enables comparisons of how different areas reorganize following lesions. Chapter 2 provides a brief overview of our work, which is described in detail in the original papers and manuscripts contained in the second part of this thesis.