Spinogenesis and Pruning from Early Visual Onset to Adulthood: An Intracellular Injection Study of Layer III Pyramidal Cells in the Ventral Visual Cortical Pathway of the Macaque Monkey

• Published in: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) Vol. 20; no. 6; pp. 1398 - 1408
• Main Authors: Elston, Guy N., Oga, Tomofumi, Okamoto, Tsuguhisa, Fujita, Ichiro
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Oxford University Press 01.06.2010
• Subjects: Aging - physiology; Animals; Cell Differentiation - physiology; Cell Shape - physiology; cortex; dendrite; Dendritic Spines - physiology; Dendritic Spines - ultrastructure; development; Hebbian rule; Macaca; Macaca fascicularis; Male; Neural Pathways - cytology; Neural Pathways - growth & development; Neural Pathways - physiology; Primates; Pyramidal Cells - cytology; Pyramidal Cells - physiology; spines; spontaneous activity; Temporal Lobe - cytology; Temporal Lobe - growth & development; Temporal Lobe - physiology; Visual Cortex - cytology; Visual Cortex - growth & development; Visual Cortex - physiology; Visual Pathways - cytology; Visual Pathways - growth & development; Visual Pathways - physiology; Visual Perception - physiology
• ISSN: 1047-3211; 1460-2199
• DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhp203

Neocortical pyramidal cells are characterized by markedly different structure among cortical areas in the mature brain. In the ventral visual pathway of adult primates, pyramidal cells become increasingly more branched and more spinous with anterior progression through the primary (V1), second (V2), and fourth (V4) visual areas and cytoarchitectonic areas TEO and TE. It is not known how these regional specializations in neuron structure develop. Here, we report that the basal dendritic trees of layer III pyramidal cells in V1, V2, V4, TEO, and TE were characterized by unique growth profiles. Different numbers of spines were grown in the dendritic trees of cells among these cortical areas and then subsequently pruned. In V1, V2, and V4, more spines were pruned than grew resulting in a net decrease in the number of spines in the dendritic trees following the onset of visual experience. In TEO and TE, neurons grew more spines than they pruned from visual onset to adulthood. These data suggest that visual experience may influence neuronal maturation in different ways in different cortical areas.