Effect of early sensory experience on the exploratory activity in adult animals

It was previously found that the exploratory activity of adult Wistar rats with their vibrissae cut in the period from 9 to 20 postnatal days was characterized by lower intragroup variability in comparison with control rats [3]. The present study has shown that the earlier limitation of species-specific afferentation (whisker trimming on postnatal days 2-9) does not induce such changes. We conclude that high plasticity of the brain during the early postnatal period provides better adaptation to the deficit of sensory information.