Effects of monocular deprivation on geniculocortical pathways in the owl monkey, Aotus trivirgatus

Abstract

As has been shown for a number of other mammals, monocular eyelid suture in the newborn owl monkey, a New World primate, is followed by a failure of neurons in the deprived layers of the lateral geniculate nucleus to reach normal size in the adult animal. This failure appears to be almost completely confined to relay cells, identified by horseradish peroxidase (HRP) injections into cortex, rather than interneurons. Similar proportions of neurons in both the deprived and non-deprived layers are labeled after HRP injections, suggesting that relay cells do not lose all cortical connections as a result of visual deprivation.