Barrel Cortex As An Experimental System
The barrel cortex of the rodent has proved to be a fruitful model system for investigating plasticity in primary somatosensory cortex (S1). There are several reasons for its popularity (adapted from Feldman and Brecht, 2005 ):
- The barrel cortex contains an orderly map which corresponds with the arrangement of the facial whiskers.
- The cortical representations of the whiskers correspond one-to-one with barrel structures which are visible under the microscope even in unstained slices.
- Barrel cortex is superficially located and so amenable to in vivo investigation.
- Sensory deprivation, by trimming or plucking of whiskers, or stimulation, by whisker vibration, is easy to arrange experimentally.
- The use of transgenic mice allows genetic and molecular mechanisms of plasticity to be investigated.
- Barrel columns are a specialized example of cortical columns, which are believed to be an important feature of cortical functional organization, suggesting that results from barrel cortex may be generally applicable to the rest of the sensory cortex.
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