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Updated: Jan 29, 2026

Monocular Visual Deprivation and Ocular Dominance Plasticity Measurement in the Mouse Primary Visual Cortex
Published on: February 8, 2020
Evidence for associative plasticity in the human visual cortex
Federico Ranieri1, Gianluca Coppola2, Gabriella Musumeci3
1Research Unit of Neurology, Neurophysiology and Neurobiology, Università Campus Bio-Medico, Roma, Italy; NeXT: Neurophysiology and Neuroengineering of Human-Technology Interaction Research Unit, Università Campus Bio-Medico, Roma, Italy; Fondazione Alberto Sordi-Research Institute for Aging, Roma, Italy.
Background:
Repetitive convergent inputs to a single post-synaptic neuron can induce long-term potentiation (LTP) or depression (LTD) of synaptic activity in a spike timing-dependent manner.
Objective:
Here we set a protocol of visual paired associative stimulation (vPAS) of the primary visual cortex (V1) in humans to induce persistent changes in the excitatory properties of V1 with a spike timing rule.
Methods:
We provided convergent inputs to V1 by coupling transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) pulses of the occipital cortex with peripheral visual inputs, at four interstimulus intervals of -50/-25/+25/+50 ms relative to the visual evoked potential (VEP) P1 latency. We analysed VEP amplitude and delayed habituation before and up to 10 min after each vPAS protocol.
Results:
VEP amplitude was reduced after vPAS+25. Delayed VEP habituation was increased after vPAS-25 while it was reduced after vPAS+25.
Conclusions:
We provide evidence that associative bidirectional synaptic plasticity is a feature not only of the sensorimotor but also of the human visual system.
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