Effects of progressively longer durations of monocular deprivation on development of visuocortical receptive fields in the rabbit.

Three groups of rabbits were reared with monocular eyelid suture. Percentages of cells with various receptive field types were determined by recording in the deprived visual cortex of animals 30-35 days, 46-55 days, and 20-36 months old. These results, together with previously published data from two other groups of monocularly deprived rabbits, are described relative to normative data for 9-10-day-old and adult rabbits. During the first postnatal year cells in the deprived visual cortex acquire normal adult proportions of receptive field types, but do so over a longer course than that which is characteristic of cells in non-deprived visual cortex. With continued deprivation for 2-3 years there is a subsequent loss of oriented type cells and a corresponding increase in non-responsive cells.