Topic: structural synaptic plasticity

Can enhanced early sensory experience improve learning later in life? Using an enriched environment (EE) paradigm, we characterised the impact of enhanced sensory processing in early life during critical periods of cortical interneuron synaptic assembly, on changes in structural synaptic plasticity in vivo, functional cortical network activity and behaviour in adult mice. Using 2-photon longitudinal intravital microscopy, cranial window implantation and calcium imaging, we monitored the effects of early EE on functional cortical neuron population activity in mouse somatosensory (S1) cortex wit