Principal Investigator Elly Nedivi
The ultimate structure and function of our brains are directly influenced by our experiences and interactions with the world around us. The critical period for ocular dominance plasticity is a time during development where a change in visual input to the visual cortex can cause profound changes in the connectivity of this area of the brain. For several years, our lab has developed techniques to image the entire dendritic arbors of neurons with synaptic resolution over time. In the adult, we have studied the plasticity of various types of neurons and characterized the dynamics of this plasticity during normal experience and during experimental manipulation. My project makes use of the genetic labeling and high resolution imaging techniques developed in the lab to investigate the formation of inhibitory and excitatory connections and their activity-dependent selection during the cortical critical period for ocular dominance plasticity in mice.