Recovery of glutamatergic and GABAergic protein expression in visual cortex after monocular deprivation

Abstract A collection of glutamatergic and GABAergic proteins participate in regulating experience-dependent plasticity in the visual cortex (V1). Many studies have characterized changes to those proteins caused by monocular deprivation (MD) during the critical period (CP), but less is known about changes that occur when MD stops. We measured the effects of 3 types of visual experience after MD (n=24, 10 male and 14 female); reverse occlusion (RO), binocular deprivation (BD), or binocular vision, on the expression of synaptic proteins in V1 including glutamatergic and GABAergic receptor subunits. Synapsin expression was increased by RO but not affected by the other treatments. BD shifted the balance between glutamatergic and GABAergic receptor subunits to favor GABA A α1. In contrast, BV shifted expression to favor the glutamatergic mechanisms by increasing NMDAR and decreasing GABA A α1 subunits. None of the conditions returned normal expression levels to all of the proteins, but BV was the closest.