Stability in the Face of Change: Lifelong Experience-Dependent Plasticity in the Sensory Cortex

Plasticity is a fundamental property of the nervous system that enables its adaptations to the ever-changing environment. Heightened plasticity typical for developing circuits facilitates their robust experience-dependent functional maturation. This plasticity wanes during adolescence to permit the stabilization of mature brain function, but abundant evidence supports that adult circuits exhibit both transient and long-term experience-induced plasticity. Cortical plasticity has been extensively studied throughout the life span in sensory systems and the main distinction between development and adulthood arising from these studies is the concept that passive exposure to relevant information is sufficient to drive robust plasticity early in life, while higher-order attentional mechanisms are necessary to drive plastic changes in adults. Recent work in the primary visual and auditory cortices began to define the circuit mechanisms that govern these processes and enable continuous adaptation to the environment, with transient circuit disinhibition emerging as a common prerequisite for both developmental and adult plasticity. Drawing from studies in visual and auditory systems, this review article summarizes recent reports on the circuit and cellular mechanisms of experience-driven plasticity in the developing and adult brains and emphasizes the similarities and differences between them. The benefits of distinct plasticity mechanisms used at different ages are discussed in the context of sensory learning, as well as their relationship to maladaptive plasticity and neurodevelopmental brain disorders. Knowledge gaps and avenues for future work are highlighted, and these will hopefully motivate future research in these areas, particularly those about the learning of complex skills during development.