Question

How can I distinguish well developed visual cortex and not developed visual cortex? Do we see more dendrites or zinc-containing boutons in well developed visual cortex?

Answer 1

A well developed visual cortex can be distinguished from underdeveloped in many ways.some are:

• Visual milestones
• Anatomical milestones
• Neurobiological milestones

Visual milestones:

Binocular vision, stereopsis , spatial acuity , motion , color perception, contour integration, face perception all of these develops with age

Anatomical milestones:

Feed forward input, Cytochrome oxidase blobs, feedback inputs, intracortical myelin, horizontal and interlamina connections all of these increase with advancement of age hence with development of visual cortex

Synaptogenesis increases upto age of 1 year and then decrease

Neurobiological milestones:

Synapsin, gephysin, classic mbp, GABA A alpha 1, GluA2, GluN2A all of these develops with age

Zinc containing boutons are type of glutamatergic neurons which do not increase with age. Hence we see more dendrites in developed bisual cortex and not zinc containing boutons