Laboratory for Neuronal Circuit Development
Research Areas
| Sensory experience shapes the mammalian brain during "critical periods" of development. After even a brief period of monocular occlusion in early life, input to visual cortex from the closed eye is functionally weakened, then anatomically reduced in size. For the first time, we have achieved direct control over the timing of this classical plasticity by manipulating inhibitory (GABAergic) transmission. To further understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms that consolidate changes in connectivity within cortical circuits, we are pursuing the pharmacological or genetic disruption of candidate structure-related proteins using a mouse model and investigating the interplay between visual experience-dependent plasticity and endogenous sleep rhythms emerging along the same thalamocortical circuits. |  Laboratory Head Takao K. HENSCH (Ph.D.)  |
Research Subjects
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List of Selected Publications
| (1) | Hensch, T.K.: "Critical Period Plasticity in Local Cortical Circuits" Nature Rev. Neurosci., 6, 877-888 (2005). |
| (2) | Mataga, N., Mizuguchi, Y., and Hensch, T.K.: "Experience-dependent pruning of dendritic spines in visual cortex by tissue plasminogen activator" Neuron, 44, 1031-1041 (2004). |
| (3) | Hensch, T.K.: "Critical period regulation" Annu. Rev. Neurosci., 27, 549-579 (2004). |
| (4) | Fagiolini, M., Fritschy, J-M., Löw, K., Rudolph, U., Möhler, H., and Hensch, T.K.: "Specific GABAA circuits for visual cortical plasticity" Science, 303, 1681-1683 (2004). |
| (5) | Miyamoto, H., Katagiri, H., and Hensch, T.: "Experience-dependent slow-wave sleep development" Nature Neuroscience, 6, 553-554 (2003). |