Abstract
Environmental enrichment potentiates neural plasticity, enhancing acquisition and consolidation of memory traces1. In the sensory cortices, after cortical circuit maturation and sensory function acquisition are completed, neural plasticity declines and the critical period 'closes'2. In the visual cortex, this process can be prevented by dark-rearing, and here we show that environmental enrichment can promote physiological maturation and consolidation of visual cortical connections in dark-reared rats, leading to critical period closure.
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Acknowledgements
This work was supported by MIUR COFIN, Fondazione Telethon, FIRB and FISR.
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Bartoletti, A., Medini, P., Berardi, N. et al. Environmental enrichment prevents effects of dark-rearing in the rat visual cortex. Nat Neurosci 7, 215–216 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1201
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn1201
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