Cortical Representational Plasticity: Some Implications for the Bases of Recovery from Brain Damage

Over the past several decades, most forebrain neuroscientists have adopted an anatomically dominated view of the origins of brain functions. According to this view, neurons are assigned their functional roles through a critical period in early life; those roles are defined by the maturation of neurons and their connections, and once established, describe the operations of those neurons for a lifetime. There is a great body of evidence that reveals this general viewpoint to be incorrect.

[1]  W. J. Nowack.  Neurobiology of Neocortex , 1989, Neurology.

[2]  J. Kalaska,et al.  Chronic peripheral nerve injuries alter the somatotopic organization of the cuneate nucleus in kittens , 1982, Brain Research.

[3]  J. Wall,et al.  Cutaneous responsiveness in primary somatosensory (S-I) hindpaw cortex before and after partial hindpaw deafferentation in adult rats , 1984, The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience.

[4]  N. Tsukahara.  Cellular Basis of Classical Conditioning Mediated by the Red Nucleus in the Cat , 1986 .

[5]  J. Kaas,et al.  Variability in hand surface representations in areas 3b and 1 in adult owl and squirrel monkeys , 1987, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[6]  F. B. Dresslar.  Studies in the psychology of touch , 1894 .

[7]  C. D. Woody,et al.  Effects of acetylcholine and cyclic GMP on input resistance of cortical neurons in awake cats , 1978, Brain Research.

[8]  M B Jones,et al.  Influences of low and high frequency oscillation upon spatio-tactile resolution. , 1970, Physiology & behavior.

[9]  D. J. Felleman,et al.  Topographic reorganization of somatosensory cortical areas 3b and 1 in adult monkeys following restricted deafferentation , 1983, Neuroscience.

[10]  C. Woody.  Understanding the cellular basis of memory and learning. , 1986, Annual review of psychology.

[11]  D. J. Felleman,et al.  Progression of change following median nerve section in the cortical representation of the hand in areas 3b and 1 in adult owl and squirrel monkeys , 1983, Neuroscience.

[12]  M. Cynader,et al.  Somatosensory cortical map changes following digit amputation in adult monkeys , 1984, The Journal of comparative neurology.

[13]  M. Mishkin,et al.  Lesion-induced plasticity in the second somatosensory cortex of adult macaques. , 1988, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[14]  M. Merzenich,et al.  Functional reorganization of primary somatosensory cortex in adult owl monkeys after behaviorally controlled tactile stimulation. , 1990, Journal of neurophysiology.

[15]  M. Merzenich,et al.  Reorganization of neocortical representations after brain injury: a neurophysiological model of the bases of recovery from stroke. , 1987, Progress in brain research.

[16]  M. Merzenich,et al.  Receptive fields in the body-surface map in adult cortex defined by temporally correlated inputs , 1988, Nature.

[17]  E. W. Kairiss,et al.  Hebbian synapses: biophysical mechanisms and algorithms. , 1990, Annual review of neuroscience.

[18]  W. James.  The principles of psychology , 1983 .

[19]  Marshall B. Jones,et al.  Line-Gap Discrimination of the Skin , 1973, Perceptual and motor skills.

[20]  Joel Ira Franck,et al.  Functional reorganization of cat somatic sensory-motor cortex (SmI) after selective dorsal root rhizotomies , 1980, Brain Research.

[21]  J. Kaas,et al.  Magnification, receptive-field area, and "hypercolumn" size in areas 3b and 1 of somatosensory cortex in owl monkeys. , 1980, Journal of neurophysiology.