Large-scale changes in dendritic structure during reorganization of adult somatosensory cortex.

In adult rat somatosensory cortex (S1), neurons are biased and have less dendritic arbor close to the border between the forepaw and lower jaw representations. Changes in sensory experience cause changes in the functional organization of the neocortex. Therefore, we examined the morphology of neurons in the reorganized region of S1 after forepaw denervation. We found that during reorganization dendritic arbors changed to reflect the new location of the border.