The barrel field of the somatosensory cortex. A short period of experience with a single whisker induces CRE-mediated gene expression in the barrel cortex.
Arrows show appearance of a blue dot on the hemisphere contralateral to the spared whisker.
The blue stain shows the nuclei of CRE-expressing cells. It is that part of the brain which gives us our distinctively human qualitites. We are studying these questions in an area of the brain that processes tactile information. In the future, it should be possible to track down the major molecules necessary for plasticity in the sensory cortex and describe the neuronal activity patterns that activate them. Glutamate blockade at cortical synapses disrupts development of thalamocortical and columnar organization in somatosensory cortex.