Figure 7: Thalamic mechanism of coordinating sensory cortical areas territories mediated by the existence of spontaneous calcium waves.
From: Prenatal thalamic waves regulate cortical area size prior to sensory processing
Embryonically visual input deprived mice (embBE) show an expansion of the primary somatosensory cortex (S1) prior to sensory experience. This expansion of the barrel-field is triggered by activity-dependent gene regulation in the VPM. Both the embryonic abolishment on peripheral input or silencing thalamic waves in the auditory nucleus of the thalamus (MGv) leads to an increase wave activity in the VPM, which triggers Rorβ expression and an expansion of the barrel-field in S1. When the MGv auditory thalamic waves are silenced, the expression of Rorβ is decreased and this effect predates the reduction of the A1 area.
