Special Bernstein Seminar "Ocular dominance plasticity in a thalamo-cortical recurrent network model" by Jeanine Laturner

Special Bernstein Seminar which features the presentation of the the Bernstein-CorTec Awardee 2021: MSc Jeanine Laturner

Jeanine Laturner

Bernstein Center Freiburg | Universität Freiburg

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Traditionally, the visual cortex was viewed as the first stage where retinal input converges and therefore experience-dependent plasticity was believed to be exclusively cortical. However, recent studies show that retinal ganglion cells already converge at the level of the dorsal lateral geniculate nucleus (dLGN), a part of the thalamus. Binocular responsiveness of thalamic neurons suggests ocular dominance plasticity not only in cortex but also within dLGN or thalamo-cortical projections.

 Recent studies show that when closing one eye for a certain amount of time thalamic relay cells respond stronger to input from the open eye after monocular deprivation. This is called an ocular dominance shift and cannot be explained by cortical feedback only. Ocular dominance plasticity is likely to underly Hebbian and homeostatic mechanisms. In this talk I will present different plasticity rules based on homeostatic principles in a thalamic recurrent network model. We will explore which prerequisites are crucial to observe an ocular dominance shift after monocular deprivation as has been observed in experiments.

Full list of BCF seminars: here

Nov 09, 2021
from 05:00 PM to 06:00 PM

Zoom Meeting. You can contact Fiona Siegfried for meeting ID and password.

Info & Contact: here