'Natural' and artificial monocular deprivation effects on thalamic soma sizes in pigeons

The dominance for visual pattern analysis of the left hemisphere in normal pigeons and the concomitant morphological asymmetries in the optic tectum can be attributed to a 'natural' prehatch monocular deprivation of the left eye resulting from an asymmetrical embryonic position within the egg. Using control animals and pigeons which were monocularly deprived for 10 days after hatching, the present study could show that the cellular soma sizes of the nucleus rotundus within the tectofugal visual pathway are modified by light experience depending on the timepoint and direction of lateralized stimulation. Although rotundal cell size is thus ontogenetically modified in an activity-dependent manner, a detailed comparison makes it likely that the mechanisms which govern developmental plasticity of visual pathways differ between birds and mammals.