Visual NeuroPlasticity Workshop

Outcome of Workshop:  This workshop revealed multiple mechanisms of NeuroPlasticity, moving well beyond the classic phenomena of long term potentiation and depression (LTP/LTD). Seventeen expert participants reported on studies ranging from retinal to cortical, and from molecular to behavioral. Eight principles were identified:

• Neuroplasticity is driven by biological mechanisms that work to restore the local circuit balance of excitation and inhibition (E/I balance).
• Sensory deprivation acts as a perturbation to the E/I balance.
• Homeostatic processes work toward maintenance of function and they decline with age.
• Non-neuronal cells and gap junctions contribute to and provide structural and molecular support for change.
• Representational shifts occur via polysynaptic reweighting and involve neuronal ensembles.
• Redundancy and reciprocity are hallmarks of resilience and agents for change.
• Polysynaptic reweighting may occur within subcortical structures, and in thalamocortical or corticocortical projections, with the later exhibiting the most obvious adult plasticity.
• Calculated sensory degradation stimuli may encourage neuroplasticity by taking advantage of biological reweighting algorithms.

Read the full analysis in the Visual NeuroPlasticity Workshop Report

Sessions, Topics and Speakers:

Cortical cellular mechanisms

• Lindsey Glickfeld, Duke University, Chair
• Elizabeth Quinlan, University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Rafael Yuste, Columbia University
• David Fitzpatrick, Max Planck Florida Institute for Neuroscience

Subcortical mechanisms

• Jianhua Cang, University of Virginia, Chair
• Hey-Kyoung Lee, Johns Hopkins University
• Chinfei Chen, Boston Children's Hospital
• Jennifer L. Hoy, University of Nevada, Reno

Retinal remodeling and neuroglia

• Alapakkam Sampath, University of California Los Angeles, Chair
• Bryan W. Jones, University of Utah
• Greg D. Field, University of California Los Angeles
• Daniel Kerschensteiner, Washington University
• Cagla Eroglu, Duke University

Functional reorganization in humans

• Marlene Behrmann, University of Pittsburgh, Chair
• Ione Fine, University of Washington
• Pawan Sinha, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
• Tara L. Alvarez, New Jersey Institute of Technology
   

NEI Program Committee

• Martha Flanders, Chair
• Lesley Earl
• Tom Greenwell
• Alicia Kerr
• Wei Li
• Cheri Wiggs