Topic: exploratory behaviour

Lateral hypothalamic orexin/hypocretin (OH) circuits enhance exploratory behaviour and cortical gamma power, key physiological variables affecting neuronal responses in the primary visual cortex (V1). In order to elucidate the functional significance of OH signals for V1 experience-dependent plasticity, we tested orexin KO-mice in the classic ocular dominance plasticity (ODP) paradigm using intrinsic signal optical imaging (OI). Since ODP depends on age and housing conditions, we tested ODP during the critical period (CP) for ODP (P21-P35) and in adults (>P110) with standard cage (SC) housi