The effects of bilateral enucleation in the primate fetus on the parcellation of visual cortex.

Bilateral enucleation in the macaque fetus causes an areal reduction of an otherwise normal striate cortex. Here we show that in early operated animals this reduction is accompanied by a separation of striate and prostriate cortices which are normally contiguous. However this induced separation does not correspond to the areal reduction of striate cortex, indicating that extrinsic signals regulate either the proliferation and/or survival of striate cortical neurons.