BIO SCI 35 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: David H. Hubel, Visual Impairment, Visual Cortex

• School: UC-Irvine
• Department: Biological Sciences
• Course: BIO SCI 35
• Professor: Andreacecilia Nicholas

Document Summary

Early life experiences have impact on our behavior. Seriously deprived/neglected children can suffer from mental retardation. Geese shown to follow their first moving stimulus- will prefer lorenz over biological mom. Learning second language also is limited by critical period. Amblyopia (lazy eye) is caused by mismatched binocular vision. This is not due to eye deficit but has to do with brain connection wiring, Hubel and wiesel found that the primary visual cortex is neural basis of amblyopia. Tracer injections reveal mixing of visual pathways from contralateral and ipsilateral eye. Can rewire binocular visual cortex if deprive vision in bad eye during critical period. Area v1 plasticity as a function of age. Early visual deprivation prevents development of visual acuity in mice during critical period. Critical period thought to be balance of inhibition and excitation. By injecting into primary visual cortex of adult mice previously loss of vision during first critical period. Behavioral tests are used to test visual acuity.