Modeling Plasticity in Rat Barrel Cortex Induced by One Spared Whisker

We have extended the previous model [1,2] of experience-dependent plasticity in the rat cortical representation of the whiskers (the barrel cortex) to include excitatory and inhibitory interactions within a barrel-column. Recent experimental observations [3] indicate that after trimming all but one whisker on one side of the rat snout, the spared and deprived whisker dominance distribution was changed significantly for neurons located in layers II/III of barrelcolumns surrounding the spared whisker column. The present simulations suggest that the experimental observations may be explained by means of the Bienenstock, Cooper and Munro (BCM) theory of synaptic plasticity and by the masking effect of the intralayer feedback inhibition.