NEURAL MECHANISMS OF VISION

描述（改编自申请人的摘要）：各种条件导致 视觉皮层的长期变化，如果它们发生在关键时期 从睁开眼睛一直持续到青春期之前这些长期变化是 由到达视觉皮层的电流活动控制， 视网膜，并涉及消除一些突触和形成其他突触， 以及轴突终末的变化。长期工作量大 增强作用以及视觉皮层的可塑性表明， 电活动激活一系列步骤，包括释放 谷氨酸，谷氨酸受体激活，第二信使，蛋白质 激酶和磷酸酶，转录因子，和蛋白质的合成， 参与突触的形成和消除可能有几种物质 参与每一步。本申请的长期目标是 确定哪些物质参与，哪些不是，在多大程度上， 涉及平行行动，在哪些点上有行动的汇合 由单一物质介导。这个应用程序使用了眼动仪中的移位 优势，发生与单眼剥夺，以测试一系列的 假说：1）NMDA和代谢型谷氨酸受体平行作用; 2)蛋白激酶A是一种重要的物质， 物质会聚（因此PKA拮抗剂阻断可塑性 3）II组代谢型受体在以下方面发挥重要作用： 外膝体核传入神经到外膝体核的正常分离 视觉皮层

DESCRIPTION (Adapted From The Applicant's Abstract): Various conditions lead to long-term changes in the visual cortex, if they occur during a critical period that lasts from eye opening to just before puberty. These long-term changes are controlled by electrical activity reaching the visual cortex from the two retinas, and involve elimination of some synapses and formation of others, together with changes in axon terminals. Considerable work on long-term potentiation, as well as plasticity in the visual cortex, suggests that electrical activity activates a series of steps that includes release of glutamate, activation of glutamate receptors, second messengers, protein kinases and phosphatases, transcription factors, and synthesis of proteins that are involved in synapse formation and elimination. Several substances may be involved at each step. The long-term objective of this application if to determine which substances are involved, which are not, to what degree those involved act in parallel and at which points there is a convergence of actions mediated by a single substance. This application uses the shift in ocular dominance that occurs with monocular deprivation to test a series of hypotheses: 1) that NMDA and metabotropic glutamate receptors act in parallel; 2) that protein kinase A is crucial substance upon which the actions of several substances converge (and thus that antagonists of PKA block plasticity altogether); 3) that Group II metabotropic receptors play an important role in the normal segregation of afferents from the lateral geniculate nucleus to the visual cortex.