Sensory modality-specific homeostatic plasticity in the developing optic tectum

We describe a novel form of homeostatic synaptic plasticity in multisensory neurons in the optic tectum of Xenopus laevis tadpoles. Individual tectal neurons are known to receive converging inputs from multiple sensory modalities. We show that long-term alterations in either visual or mechanosensory activity in vivo result in homeostatic changes specific to each sensory modality. In contrast to typical forms of homeostatic synaptic plasticity, such as synaptic scaling, we show that this type of plasticity occurs in a pathway-specific manner more reminiscent of Hebbian-type plasticity.