Cumulative effect of brief daily periods of monocular vision on kitten striate cortex

Summary

Eight kittens were subjected to daily 4-h sessions with vision restricted to one eye between the 4th and 9th postnatal weeks. The total duration of monocular exposure ranged from 76 to 152 h. Between monocular exposure periods, four kittens were kept in total darkness, and four experienced binocular vision under normal colony conditions. At the end of the rearing period, all experimental animals and four normally reared controls were studied by means of single-unit recording in primary visual cortex. In kittens with inter-session dark rearing, very few neurons could be driven through the deprived eye. This effect was more extreme than that observed after continuous dark rearing. Visual responses mediated by the experienced eye appeared normal. In contrast, in kittens with inter-session binocular vision, the large majority of visual cortical neurons responded to visual stimulation of either eye. A few neurons appeared to have lost their responsiveness to the deprived eye, but this effect was small. We conclude that monocular vision delivered during brief daily sessions produces a cumulative competitive inactivation of transmission in the pathway from the deprived eye to striate cortex so long as no visual stimulation occurs outside the monocular periods. Binocular visual stimulation received between sessions rapidly and almost completely reverses the effects of monocular vision.