Department of Physics and Institute for Brain and Neural Systems Present:

“Frontiers in the Interaction Between Physics and Biology”

Professor Mark Bear (Picower Professor of Neuroscience, MIT)
October 25 2005, 4:00 PM; Barus and Holley, Room 168

"The ups and downs of ocular dominance plasticity in visual cortex"

Abstract:
Theories of receptive field plasticity and information storage make specific assumptions for how synapses are modified. Testing the validity of these assumptions eventually led to a detailed understanding of long-term depression and metaplasticity in hippocampal area CA1 and visual cortex. Knowledge of these molecular mechanisms now promises to reveal when and how sensory experience modifies synapses in the cerebral cortex.