Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss
Adult neural plasticity within the visual system remains controversial. Starkly opposing views still remain on the ability of the visual system to reorganize in adulthood. Most attempts have focused on testing reorganization upon central visual loss. However, central loss triggers immediate adaptive...
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Elsevier
2025-02-01
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| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844025003500 |
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| author | Otília C. d’Almeida Joana M. Sampaio Sónia Ferreira Eduardo D. Silva Miguel Castelo-Branco |
| author_facet | Otília C. d’Almeida Joana M. Sampaio Sónia Ferreira Eduardo D. Silva Miguel Castelo-Branco |
| author_sort | Otília C. d’Almeida |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Adult neural plasticity within the visual system remains controversial. Starkly opposing views still remain on the ability of the visual system to reorganize in adulthood. Most attempts have focused on testing reorganization upon central visual loss. However, central loss triggers immediate adaptive strategies such as the emergence of new retinal preferential fixation loci, which may preclude plasticity. Moreover, plasticity may be further reduced in later ageing periods. Here we addressed this issue by studying visual plasticity in a genetically determined retinal disorder, Retinitis Pigmentosa, in which peripheral visual loss emerges not long after the critical period, in teenage years. We performed a case-control study with one-to-one matching and used an artificial scotoma approach which carefully simulated the defective visual field of each RP patient on a normal-sighted control. We used as outcomes population receptive field measures to probe long-term plasticity using fMRI retinotopy. We found evidence for reorganization based on pRF size metrics and explained variance of reorganized visual field maps. In sum, visual cortical plasticity triggered by peripheral visual loss occurs beyond the critical period of visual maturation. |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj-art-a81530d142d34941a24266f2e88d4035 |
| institution | Kabale University |
| issn | 2405-8440 |
| language | English |
| publishDate | 2025-02-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Heliyon |
| spelling | doaj-art-a81530d142d34941a24266f2e88d40352025-02-11T04:35:10ZengElsevierHeliyon2405-84402025-02-01114e41970Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual lossOtília C. d’Almeida0Joana M. Sampaio1Sónia Ferreira2Eduardo D. Silva3Miguel Castelo-Branco4Univ Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), Coimbra, Portugal; Univ Coimbra, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal; Corresponding author. Univ Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), Coimbra, Portugal.Univ Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), Coimbra, PortugalUniv Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), Coimbra, PortugalUniv Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), Coimbra, PortugalUniv Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), Coimbra, Portugal; Univ Coimbra, Faculty of Medicine, Coimbra, Portugal; Univ Maastricht, Faculty of Psychology, Maastricht, the Netherlands; Corresponding author. Univ Coimbra, Coimbra Institute for Biomedical Imaging and Translational Research (CIBIT), Institute for Nuclear Sciences Applied to Health (ICNAS), Coimbra, Portugal.Adult neural plasticity within the visual system remains controversial. Starkly opposing views still remain on the ability of the visual system to reorganize in adulthood. Most attempts have focused on testing reorganization upon central visual loss. However, central loss triggers immediate adaptive strategies such as the emergence of new retinal preferential fixation loci, which may preclude plasticity. Moreover, plasticity may be further reduced in later ageing periods. Here we addressed this issue by studying visual plasticity in a genetically determined retinal disorder, Retinitis Pigmentosa, in which peripheral visual loss emerges not long after the critical period, in teenage years. We performed a case-control study with one-to-one matching and used an artificial scotoma approach which carefully simulated the defective visual field of each RP patient on a normal-sighted control. We used as outcomes population receptive field measures to probe long-term plasticity using fMRI retinotopy. We found evidence for reorganization based on pRF size metrics and explained variance of reorganized visual field maps. In sum, visual cortical plasticity triggered by peripheral visual loss occurs beyond the critical period of visual maturation.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844025003500Population receptive fieldsPlasticityVisual lossRetinitis pigmentosaScotomaMRI |
| spellingShingle | Otília C. d’Almeida Joana M. Sampaio Sónia Ferreira Eduardo D. Silva Miguel Castelo-Branco Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss Heliyon Population receptive fields Plasticity Visual loss Retinitis pigmentosa Scotoma MRI |
| title | Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss |
| title_full | Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss |
| title_fullStr | Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss |
| title_full_unstemmed | Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss |
| title_short | Long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss |
| title_sort | long term adult visual plasticity after the developmental critical period in genetically determined peripheral visual loss |
| topic | Population receptive fields Plasticity Visual loss Retinitis pigmentosa Scotoma MRI |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2405844025003500 |
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