Epigenetic control of visual cortex development and plasticity

Elevated plasticity marks the early stages of mammalian neurodevelopment when brain circuits and synaptic connections are malleable and easily shaped by experience and environmental cues. Epigenetic changes lead to alterations in gene readout in neurons that trigger dynamic and/or long-lasting changes in neural function. It is emerging that chromatin is not a stable and immutable structure but is dynamic and able to integrate a variety of signals from the cell surface in appropriate transcriptional outputs. To achieve this coordinated transcriptional response, specific molecular mechanisms remodel or tag chromatin and DNA. This chapter analyzes more in detail these epigenetic modifications. The visual system has long been one of the most investigated models for the study of experience-dependent plasticity, because visual experience can be easily manipulated and the subsequent effects can be measured at the anatomical, physiological and molecular level.