Production of brain-derived neurotrophic factor gates plasticity in developing visual cortex

We have previously shown that recovery of visual responses to a deprived eye during the critical period in mouse primary visual cortex requires phosphorylation of the TrkB receptor for BDNF [M. Kaneko, J. L. Hanover, P. M. England, M. P. Stryker, Nat. Neurosci. 11, 497–504 (2008)]. We have now studied the temporal relationship between the production of mature BDNF and the recovery of visual responses under several different conditions. Visual cortical responses to an eye whose vision has been occluded for several days during the critical period and is then re-opened recover rapidly during binocular vision or much more slowly following reverse occlusion, when the previously intact fellow eye is occluded in a model of “patch therapy” for amblyopia. The time to recovery of visual responses differed by more than 18 h between these two procedures, but in each, the production of mature BDNF preceded the physiological recovery. These findings suggest that a spurt of BDNF production is permissive for the growth of connections serving the deprived eye to restore visual responses. Attenuation of recovery of deprived-eye responses by interference with TrkB receptor activation or reduction of BDNF production by interference with homeostatic synaptic scaling had effects consistent with this suggestion.