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Updated: Aug 25, 2026

Monocular Visual Deprivation and Ocular Dominance Plasticity Measurement in the Mouse Primary Visual Cortex
Published on: February 8, 2020
Contribution of acetylcholine to visual cortex plasticity
1Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Wake Forest University School of Medicine, Medical Center Boulevard, Winston-Salem, NC 27157, USA. qgu@wfubmc.edu
Abstract:
Acetylcholine is involved in a variety of brain functions. In the visual cortex, the pattern of cholinergic innervation varies considerably across different mammalian species and across different cortical layers within the same species. The physiological effects of acetylcholine in the visual cortex display complex responses, which are likely due to cholinergic receptor subtype composition in cytoplasm membrane as well as interaction with other transmitter systems within the local neural circuitry. The functional role of acetylcholine in visual cortex is believed to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of cortical neurons during visual information processing. Available evidence suggests that acetylcholine is also involved in experience-dependent visual cortex plasticity. At the level of synaptic transmission, activation of muscarinic receptors has been shown to play a permissive role in visual cortex plasticity. Among the muscarinic receptor subtypes, the M(1) receptor seems to make a predominant contribution towards modifications of neural circuitry. The signal transduction cascade of the cholinergic pathway may act synergistically with that of the NMDA receptor pathway, whose activation is a prerequisite for cortical plasticity.
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