These tools will no longer be maintained as of December 31, 2024. Archived website can be found here. PubMed4Hh GitHub repository can be found here. Contact NLM Customer Service if you have questions.
Pubmed for Handhelds
PUBMED FOR HANDHELDS
Search MEDLINE/PubMed
Title: Consequences of visual deprivation in the absence of binocular competitive mechanisms in Siamese cat area 17. Author: Berman NE, Pearson HE, Payne BR. Journal: Brain Res Dev Brain Res; 1989 Nov 01; 50(1):69-87. PubMed ID: 2582609. Abstract: The Siamese cat is a mutant with abnormally crossed visual pathways, which provides a model for studying the effects of visual deprivation in the absence of binocular competitive interactions. Siamese cats are known to be resistant to the effects of monocular eyelid suture. To further explore the nature of this resistance, the receptive field properties of neurons in area 17 of monocularly (MD) and binocularly (BD) deprived Siamese cats were studied. Neither condition produced a loss of cortical responsiveness, which is a characteristic result of binocular deprivation in normally pigmented cats. Somewhat more units in the deprived hemisphere of MD Siamese cats were orientation-selective, and many more units were direction-selective than in BD Siamese cats. This difference may be due to an effect of visual attentional mechanisms, which can function in MD but not BD Siamese cats. To test whether the resistance to the effects of visual deprivation in Siamese cats might be a more general phenomenon. Siamese and normally pigmented cats were raised in an 8-Hz stroboscopically illuminated environment. Both groups showed a severe loss of direction selectivity. Some of the normally pigmented cats also showed a loss of binocularity, which appeared to be secondary to strabismus.[Abstract] [Full Text] [Related] [New Search]