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Loss of Arc renders the visual cortex impervious to the effects of sensory experience or deprivation

Nature Neuroscience volume 13, pages 450–457 (2010)Cite this article

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Abstract

A myriad of mechanisms have been suggested to account for the full richness of visual cortical plasticity. We found that visual cortex lacking Arc is impervious to the effects of deprivation or experience. Using intrinsic signal imaging and chronic visually evoked potential recordings, we found that Arc−/− mice did not exhibit depression of deprived-eye responses or a shift in ocular dominance after brief monocular deprivation. Extended deprivation also failed to elicit a shift in ocular dominance or open-eye potentiation. Moreover, Arc−/− mice lacked stimulus-selective response potentiation. Although Arc−/− mice exhibited normal visual acuity, baseline ocular dominance was abnormal and resembled that observed after dark-rearing. These data suggest that Arc is required for the experience-dependent processes that normally establish and modify synaptic connections in visual cortex.

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Figure 1: Loss of Arc does not affect V1 responsiveness and organization.
Figure 2: Intrinsic signal imaging after monocular deprivation illustrates a requirement for Arc in deprived-eye depression after short-term monocular deprivation.
Figure 3: Chronic VEP recordings show that Arc−/− mice do not exhibit ocular dominance plasticity after short-term monocular deprivation.
Figure 4: Arc is required for the decrease in surface AMPARs after short-term monocular deprivation.
Figure 5: Arc−/− mice do not show a shift in ocular dominance after extended deprivation, as assessed by intrinsic signal imaging.
Figure 6: Arc−/− mice exhibit no ocular dominance plasticity as assessed by chronic VEP recordings after long-term monocular deprivation.
Figure 7: Dark-rearing wild-type mice from birth mimics the contralateral to ipsilateral ratio observed Arc−/− mice.
Figure 8: Arc−/− mice lack stimulus-selective response potentiation (SRP), whereas dark-reared mice exhibit enhanced SRP in V1.

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Acknowledgements

We thank T. Emery for assistance with the preparation of the manuscript. We thank members of the Sur and Bear laboratories for their comments and helpful discussions. This work was supported by grants from the US National Institutes of Health (C.L.M., D.T. and M.S.) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (J.D.S. and M.F.B.).

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Author notes

  1. Cortina L McCurry and Jason D Shepherd: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Cortina L McCurry, Jason D Shepherd, Daniela Tropea, Mark F Bear & Mriganka Sur

  2. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Jason D Shepherd & Mark F Bear

  3. National Institute of Mental Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA

    Kuan H Wang

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  1. Cortina L McCurry
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Contributions

C.L.M. and J.D.S. conducted experiments and data analysis and wrote the manuscript. D.T. assisted with optical imaging experiments. K.H.W. provided the Arc−/− mouse line. M.S. and M.F.B. helped design experiments and supervised the project.

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Correspondence to Mark F Bear or Mriganka Sur.

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McCurry, C., Shepherd, J., Tropea, D. et al. Loss of Arc renders the visual cortex impervious to the effects of sensory experience or deprivation. Nat Neurosci 13, 450–457 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2508

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