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18 February 2022

Light-dependent development is tailored in visual neurons

When mouse pups first open their eyes, what they see shapes neuronal connectivity. A study shows that this visual experience has cell-type-specific effects, acting only on a subset of malleable neurons.

Sergi Roig Puiggros
1. Sergi Roig Puiggros is in the Department of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland.
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Denis Jabaudon
1. Denis Jabaudon is in the Department of Basic Neurosciences, University of Geneva, 1211 Geneva, Switzerland, and in the Department of Clinical Neurosciences, Geneva University Hospital, Geneva.
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Environmental stimuli have a crucial role in shaping a developing organism’s behaviour. Birds readily accept foster parents — even human ones — provided they see them at birth¹. Cats raised in an environment consisting only of vertical stripes are later unable to see horizontal lines². Even (brainless) bacteria must react to changes in environmental lactose to keep on thriving and dividing³. Distinguishing inborn (nature) from acquired (nurture) facets of development is thus a fundamental quest in biology, and particularly so in the developing brain. But, despite decades of research, we do not understand precisely how the environment shapes the brain at the molecular, cellular and circuit levels. Writing in Cell, Cheng et al.⁴ take on this challenge by investigating how postnatal visual experience affects distinct neuronal cell types in the maturing mouse brain.

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doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-00463-2

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